


Six Times The Machine

by Zaraen



Category: Halo, Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Background Relationships, Drama, F/M, Forerunner AI, Machine/Human Dilema, Minor Character Death, Transformers Earth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-04-14 05:58:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 49,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4553343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaraen/pseuds/Zaraen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was ready for her final stand. Ready to take as many as those alien bastards down as she could. Only, things didn't turn out how she expected. Death didn't claim her and now she's on the one planet they all swore to protect, but there's one difference. Someone else found it and now she's an alien to her own heritage. A machine in the eyes of this Humanity. Then there's that AI.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Lone Wolf

_Thoughts_

"Speech"

* * *

 

Reach: The hub of the UNSC's military power. It was their fortress among the stars and all that stood between the Covenant and the home of the Human race; Earth.

It was a hub that had all but been destroyed, regardless of any attempts to stop it.

Despite the odds, the UNSC had put up a good fight, but in the end it was not enough, and all they had to show for their efforts were the heavy losses they'd sustained. Countless people had died, civilian and military alike. Their screams of both hopelessness and determination had been heard all over the planet as it burned. No one was safe from the might of the Covenant's overwhelming force. Any resistances left on the planet were being stamped out by Covent forces, while the glassing of the planet took place.

But while some continued to resist, the noise of their fighting was overshadowed one individual who made the loudest noise, as she refused to go down. She survived wave after wave and no matter how tired she felt, she continued to battle on against the seemingly endless horde of Covenant. Her guns frequently clicked out of ammunition, but that didn't stop her as she managed to scrounge around for more.

Like anyone else, she'd had a team. There'd been six of them in total and each of them had done their part to ensure humanity's survival. But they'd all gone, just like so many others, and once again she was a Lone Wolf.

Irony hit her as she downed another Ultra. Her Commander had said to leave all her 'Lone Wolf stuff' behind her, and look at her now; a Lone Wolf, fighting against all the odds just to survive another day. She snorted to herself as she slammed a magazine of bullets into her beaten and borrowed Assault Rifle, and took aim at yet another Elite.

Rumbles echoed across the sky as the glassing of the planet carried on behind her while she continued to fire at the Elite and before long the bullets pierced its shield. Under her helmet she gave a small smile in satisfaction before rolling out the way of the plasma grenade that had been thrown in her direction. Heat licked at her armor and with the overturned and burnt out Warthog no longer protecting her from its fire she heard the Elite growl in success. She frowned to herself and a single shot managed to sneak in and hit her shields before she downed the Elite with a well-placed shot to the head from her magnum.

A small noise escaped the creature before it crumpled to the floor and she ran out to its body to see if there were any plasma grenades that she could use. Unfortunately there wasn't any, instead there was just the single plasma rifle it'd been trying to take her down with. Her eyes scanned the fallen body of the Elite, taking in the style of the armor and putting it together with the weak shield that it'd had, she came to the conclusion that this was a 'Minor', one of the lowest ranked Elites she'd come across. In fact, over the past hour she'd started to see less and less of the lower ranked Covenant soldiers, which meant that somebody was diverting the tougher enemies to her.

A huge roar in the distance made her head snap up before she started to scan the area in front of her. In the heavy cloud of dust and dirt that surrounded the whole battlefield, she managed to make out the silhouettes of a group of Elites that were evidently making their way towards her. Another smile crept onto her face, and keeping herself low the black and crimson coloured Spartan picked up the plasma rife before moving away from the corpse and seemingly disappearing into thin air.

She moved quickly and quietly and flanked around the new contacts that had appeared. She watched their movement, took note of what she expected their skill set's to be and formulated a plan in her head. The Elites walked slowly and cautiously towards where she'd just vacated as they knew she was not yet gone. The leader of the group –what appeared to be a General- stopped and crouched down at the body, muttering something that was incoherent to the watching Spartan. His group of four Ultras also stopped and took up positions around him. One called out something to the General, who then barked back a reply and stood up from the body.

From her crouching position the Spartan scooped up a small rock and threw it into a small crumbling structure. The small noise it made caught the attention of the Elites and the General sent two of the Ultras to the structure. Smiling inwardly the Spartan followed after the Elites, pulling out her combat knife as she did so.

When she reached the structure she found one of the Ultras with its back to her while the other was on the other side of the room. She noticed that they were both getting twitchy and knew she had to take the opportunity to take one down. Bracing her legs she launched herself onto the Ultras back with her knife raised. Noticing the new weight on his back, they Elite tried to pry her off but it was to no avail as she swiftly plunged her knife into its neck and twisted it roughly. Pushing off it's back with her feet as she pulled out the knife, blood splattered back at her briefly before the momentum of the dying Ultra sent it crashing into its comrade. Ignoring the blood that had begun to cover her armor the Spartan charged forwards so fast that the second Ultra had little time to recover before it found a knife sweeping up and splitting open its neck.

A gurgled sound escaped the Elite as its blood ran onto the Spartan's armor and it too fell to the floor beside its comrade and was soon surrounded by a pool of blood. The dark purple blood surrounded the Spartan's no longer invisible foot and with a small chuckle she flicked the blood off her knife and unholstered her assault rifle.

Let the fun begin, she thought as she ran out to meet the remainder of the group and whatever else lay before her.

So began one of the last battles the Lieutenant of Noble team would ever be in, in the Human-Covenant War.

This was the last stand of Noble Six, Spartan-B312.


	2. Guardian's Approach

_Thinking_

_"Sangheili"_

* * *

 

**Roh 'Rithinee, Surface of Reach, Fifty Kilometres from Noble Six**

Roh 'Rithinee was not a happy Sangheili. In fact he was beyond anger and as far into rage as you could possibly get. The reason for his rage being the sleek, shiny, but closed door that was sat tauntingly in front of him. He and his team of three Zealots had managed to uncover it a few days ago and due to its forerunner nature he had managed to have the glassing in the surrounding area held off until the last possible moment.

" _Field Marshal 'Rithinee?"_  A voice from behind him rumbled and he turned to see who'd disturbed him this time. When he saw who it was, he barely managed to hold back a small chuckle, before him stood the newest and youngest addition to his team; Vito 'Sivee.

" _Vito, why have you disturbed me?"_ Roh asked, his voice more stern than usual as he knew he would otherwise be soft on the youngster. Vito reminded Roh of his brother, only Vito had been less affected by the war than Thar. But now his brother was dead. Killed by one of the Demons at the beginning of the battle on this planet when he'd been sent to a place the humans called 'Visegrád Relay'.

" _Fleet Master M'Kla 'Norhonee wishes to know if you have made any progress with the Forerunner structure,"_ Vito said in a respectful tone.

Roh kept himself from sighing in frustration and instead kept up his usual calm demeanor,  _"Tell the Fleet Master that we have not made any progress. No doubt the relic on the other side is well protected for a reason."_

" _Yes, sir. I shall go tell the Fleet Master, unless you require anything of me?"_

" _Report back to the Fleet Master first, I may have something for you later."_

" _May the Forerunners guide you, Field Marshal."_ Vito bowed before backing out of the room and left Roh once again, alone with his thoughts and the locked door in front of him. His amber eyes scanned the door from corner to corner until an uneven amount of rock on the right side caught his attention.

" _What are you hiding?"_ Roh murmured to himself as he began to walk towards the object of his attention.

The rough dull rock appeared to curve outwards and as Roh got closer to it, it became more apparent that there was something underneath it. His mandibles curled into a smirk and he stretched a hand out to the piece of rock. Its surface was rough and cold underneath his black skin. He frowned as he ran his hands over the rocks chipped edges and wondered how they'd managed to miss something that seemed so obvious.

Grabbing a hold of what he now believed was the obstacle between himself and enlightenment by the Forerunners Roh smirked. He increased the pressure of his hold on the rock and found that it was already loose. Figuring that it must not have been completely dislodged in the excavation of the structure Roh made a mental note to deal with whoever had be head of the excavation team later.

Roh chuckled to himself as he wrenched the rock off the wall and as soon as he did three beams of orange light struck him -one from each side of the door and another from above. He felt nothing but a slight tingle as he was bathed in the light, which finished as quickly as it'd begun. The beams retreated back to the ports they had come from and the door did nothing but remain its stationary sleek self that emitted a small blue glow.

A growl was about to escape his mouth but before it could a floating metal orb appeared beside Roh. The Field Marshal quickly unclipped his dual plasma rifles from each of his legs and aimed them at the floating orb. On its front was a glowing pale blue eye that flashed dimly when the orb began to speak.

"I would suggest that you cease trying to enter my instillation as you are not a Reclaimer. Anyone who is not a Reclaimer or has not been given authorisation by the Librarian is forbidden to enter this installation," the orb said as it whizzed around Roh, causing him to miss the faintest flicker of red on the orbs 'eye'.

What is a Reclaimer? The thought floated through Roh mind and left him clueless. But, perhaps, he would find out soon.

Frowning, Roh stopped his eyes from following the orb around the room before speaking,  _"Tell me construct, who are you?"_

"I am five-three-seven Guardian's Approach, Monitor of Forerunner Outpost zero-seven."

" _An Oracle of the Gods?"_ Roh muttered to himself, not believing what he was seeing. An Oracle of their Gods that could give the Covenant all the information they needed to wipe heresy, which was the Humans, from the galaxy and aid in their ascension.

Lowering his weapons Roh addressed Guardian's Approach, _"If I were to find you a 'Reclaimer' would we be allowed to enter?"_

"Only if the Reclaimer deems it necessary," Guardian's Approach beamed.

Roh had no idea what a Reclaimer was but he'd noticed how the Oracle spoke in the human tongue. Was it possible that a Reclaimer was a human? No! Roh quickly dismissed that thought. If the Humans were important to the Forerunners the Prophets wouldn't declare them as Heretics, would they? Roh's trust in the Prophets had been wavering lately as they seemed to favor the Brutes more and more, something that all the Sangheili were displeased about. But, there was always the possibility it would amount to nothing and Roh was thinking to deeply about it.

Bringing himself out of his thoughts that some could consider heretical, Roh decided –against all he'd been taught- to go with his original assumption and asked the Oracle,  _"These Reclaimers you speak of, they're what we call Humans, yes?"_

"That is correct," Guardian's Approach confirmed before it began whizzing around him again. "That must mean you have encountered a Reclaimer, wonderful! You must bring them here at once! There is much they need to do!" Roh once again missed the flash of amber that came from the Monitor as its constant spinning made it impossible to see. However, Roh did not miss the sudden change in pitch of the Monitors voice when it said 'do'.

Thinking it was just the Oracle getting over excited, Roh ignored it as he mulled over the recent and important revelation that had befallen him. Had the Prophets truly been lying to the Covenant the whole time? Did they know that the Humans were important to their Gods? Roh wasn't sure what to believe, the Oracle of the Gods or the Prophets? It should have been a simple choice but something was stopping him from making it. The fact he'd spent all these years killing Humans made him not want to believe that the Oracle was right, as it meant everything they were doing was for nothing. And what about 'The Great Journey'? Was this a lie too? The Prophets had claimed that the Forerunners had ascended into Godhood but, perhaps the Oracle knew what happened to them. If it did and it turned out the Prophets were wrong Roh would have his answer.

" _Tell me Oracle, what happened to your makers?"_

"Of course, my makers fired the Halo Array in order to combat the Food infection that was consuming the galaxy. The Array wiped out all sentient life within the galaxy, including most of my makers," Guardian's Approach explained as a sad tone entered its voice.

Roh clipped his Plasma rifles back onto his legs and brought a hand up to his temple. A sense of betrayal washed through his mind. So Prophets had lied to them, the entire reason for the Covenant was a lie and the Humans were being slaughtered to extinction for no reason.

He began rubbing his temple in frustration –something he'd also seen a few humans do- as he wondered what to do next. He could tell his team, no, they wouldn't believe him. He may be their commander but the things he would tell them would be heretical and they'd cut him down. But he couldn't just continue on this journey of lies. The humans may have killed many of his brethren but in the end the Covenant had brought it on themselves by trusting the Prophets. They were all fools.

As if sensing his dilemma the Monitor spoke up, "Is something distressing you?"

" _No,"_ Roh lied.  _"I shall get you your Reclaimer, wait here Oracle."_

"Oracle?" Guardian's Approach started but Roh caught no more of its ramblings as he exited the small, purple illuminated cave.

Outside the cave Roh was met with the sight of his team. Behind them were a few other units that had been sent to ensure the sites security and an expanse of supplies were positioned around their camp. Hovering above the air were a few Phantoms that had recently dropped off some new supplies and to the left of them was the smooth, sleek purple structure that allowed them to communicate with the Fleet Master and other officers if needed.

" _Did you discover anything Field Marshal 'Rithinee?"_  His oldest Zealot -N'tho 'Amasee- asked from where he lent against the wall. His purple armor shifting as he folding his arms across his chest, a clear sign that he –like Roh- wasn't impressed with how long it was taking to access the structure.

" _I have discovered an Oracle,"_  Roh declared to his Zealots and decided to allow them to take it in before he said anymore. Their reactions were as he expected; N'tho stiffened slightly in shock but after recovering he gave a small incline of his head, Luro's mandibles twitched and his eyes narrowed into a question that asked 'are you sure?', while Vito had the least controlled reaction as his eyes widened and his mandibles sagged in surprise. The all knew what finding an Oracle meant and they'd never imagined they would ever find one.

" _It told me that we need a Human to enter its domain,"_  Roh watched as looks of disgust formed on all of their faces.

" _Why must we have one of those Heretics to gain access to the shrine of the Gods?"_ Luro spat, disgust lacing his words.

" _Do you doubt the Oracle?"_  Roh asked and Luro visibly flinched.  _"I thought not."_

" _What should we do?"_ Vito asked.

" _Tell all active field officers to bring any Human back to base, alive. Demons included."_

" _It will be done Field Marshal 'Rithinee,"_ the three Zealots said in unison before inclining their heads slightly and began walking towards their communications tower.

Roh waited a while before he went to see if anyone had encountered a Human. He'd spent his time mulling over everything he'd learnt. His mind had gone round and round in circles as it had churned up a whirlwind of emotions as everything he'd been taught clashed with this new revelation. Anger and confusion were at the center of the storm but there was nobody who he could trust to talk him through it. The only one who might have listened was dead and his other brother was too much of a believer to be of any help. His Zealots were also too blinded by their religious campaign to even consider telling.

Thinking about it only made Roh more frustrated and it got him nowhere so instead of making his mind more chaotic than it already was Roh went to see if they had a Human.

" _Has anyone found a Human, Vito?"_ He asked the young Zealot who currently had his hand on one of the green holographic buttons. His head was tilted to the slide at a small angle while his other hand was on the next terminal along and tapping away at multiple buttons. Above the second terminal a holographic display was constantly moving until it locked onto something and began zooming in.

Roh's eyes scanned over the image and flicked his eyes to the corner of the screen where he read the co-ordinates of the place that was currently displayed. It wasn't far away, a Phantom should've been able to get there within moments and back just as quickly. He looked back over the map generator and took in the purple representation of the location. It seemed familiar, but Roh could think why. However, he didn't need to as Vito had finished what he had been doing.

" _I apologies for keeping you waiting Field Marshal,"_  he said, turning to face Roh.  _"I have managed to locate a Human -a Demon in fact- that is still very much alive. It has been causing numerous problems for Field Marshal 'Amasee. He was about to engage it when I contacted him. I have given one of the Phantoms his location."_

" _He is aware I want it alive then?"_  Roh checked, now knowing why the place seemed familiar. For the past hour he'd been directing a few of his own forces to deal with the Demon. The fact it was still alive didn't surprise him, he knew how deadly they could be and only hopped that Field Marshal 'Amasee exercised caution when capturing it.

Vito nodded,  _"He does and if he loses more men trying to subdue her then kill her, he hopes you know what you're doing."_

Roh didn't answer. Instead he gave Vito a small nod, turned around and made his way over to his other two Zealots, muttering to himself,  _"I don't know if I do anymore."_

Behind him a single Phantom to lifted itself high into the clouded sky of the planet they had invaded. It paused for a mere second before its shimmering purple body disappeared into the distance and towards the Demon it intended to transport.


	3. Seven Devils

"Speech"

_"Sangheili"_

_Thoughts or words that are stressed upon._

* * *

 

**Noble Six, Reach**

Six didn't know how much time had passed since she'd started fighting. She felt herself tiring, but she refused to give in. Bodies of Elites were stern across the dull and dusky ground. All of them had different wounds; bullet holes, plasma burns, knife wounds and even a few were dismembered. Their blood pooled on the floor and even coated parts of her armor. She almost revealed in it, her destruction was unrivaled on the battlefield.

Even Insurrectionists had come to fear her as she never left any of them alive. After all why should she? They hadn't extended the same courtesy to her father. They'd capture and tortured him, all because he was UNSC personnel. She'd never forget the day she'd found what was left of him when she'd been out enjoying the forests of Charybdis Nine. His body had been a message to the UNSC and all those that stood with them. The incident had been one of the reasons she fought as hard as she did, but now? She did it because she was ordered to and because she  _enjoyed_ it. The feeling of twisting her blade into another and watching as their life left them was something so amazing she could not put it into words.

Although, she never revealed it to anyone as it would cause them to question her mental stability. But, there was no doubt that her mostly now deceased team had figured she had a thing for killing the enemy.

"Noble Six, I am detecting numerous contacts closing in on our position," DOT spoke through her helmets speakers in her usual emotionless voice. Six still wasn't completely sure how she'd managed to get a hold of the AI.

She vaguely remembered stumbling into a small communications outpost that had contained minimal supplies that she'd grabbed.

She remembered getting ready to move on when DOT had appeared on one of the monitors and spoken to her for the first time. Sure the AI had spoken to the Noble team but she'd never addressed Six herself, something that amused the Spartan. She'd then managed to find an empty data crystal chip, a fact which had surprised her as all the crystals should have been destroyed. Although, as she'd taken in the trashed area of the outpost, the dead bodies and blood splattered walls, perhaps they hadn't had time. Her discovery ended up with her slotting the AI into the back of her standard Mjolnir mark five-dash-bee helmet, which was outfitted with the UA Attachment.

While Six was one of the rare Spartan-III's to have a neural implant at the base of her skull, she'd never been issued an AI. Even when she was given the chance to handle an AI chip, she only allowed them to occupy the neural interface for as little time as possible.

"Acknowledged," Six muttered as she discarded her empty plasma rife and unholstered her assault rifle. Just as she did, the silhouette of an Elite appeared in the dust that still encase the battlefield around her. The single Elite was soon followed by more and by then Six had already begun to engage them. She took down the first one without a problem, her bullets swiftly took down its shields and it managed to get a few hits in before she finished it off.

Six shrugged off the hits and began dodging around the others. As she continued to battle her shields took more and more hits. The sounds of DOT telling her to find some cover were blocked out as every muscle in her body fought through the fatigue that was trying to claim it; she didn't want to give into it, she wouldn't give into it.

More fire hit her and her shield broke. The first few burning shots hit her body and hands and she dropped her weapon. Another two others hit her helmet cracking the visor and forcing her to pull it off. When she did, the noises that had been DOT's voice faded away as she dropped it to the side.

Six scooped up her weapon and as she stepped to the side she began to calmly shoot down the Ultra that had been shooting at her. When the Ultra hit the floor she sensed something behind her and instinctively elbowed an Elite General across the face, knocking it to the ground. Its sword fell from its grasp and she gave it no time to grab it or recover from her blow as she pulled out her pistol and shot it in the head.

Breathing in deeply and attempting to ignore the pain Six only got hit in the stomach by more plasma fire. The hot substance burned at her skin and the pain of it almost caused her to sag to the floor, but she held strong. She unleashed a torrent of bullets at the Elite that just shot her in retaliation. Another one appeared in the corner of her vision and as she continued to fire from the hip at one, she shot the other with her pistol. Both Elites soon fell, but Six was given little time to recover as a hard force knocked her to the ground, sending her weapons flying from her hands. She caught the barking of another Elite as the Ultra pounced at her with its energy dagger raised.

Kicking out at the Ultra with as much force as she could muster, Six sent the white Elite stumbling away. After hearing footfalls of another Elite to her right she turned and managed to knock it's sword from its hand.

More barking could be heard in the background only it's more furious this time.

The Elite she disarmed recoiled while the Ultra came back at her with its energy dagger. Six rolled out the way and elbowed the Ultra in the jaw with one arm, while she reached round for her knife with the other. Straight after elbowing the Ultra she turned to stab it in the side of the face and was greeted by a gurgle as the blade tore through the alien's skin.

She then turned back to the Zealot she'd previously disarmed and saw it coming at her with its energy dagger. Six attempted to roll to the side to avoid the dagger, but found she couldn't when the wind was suddenly knocked out of her. The pain from her wounds intensified as something hard pressed down on her chest. Looking up she saw a Field Marshal and a scowl formed on her face as it barked at the Zealot and looked back at her.

In a last ditch attempt to be defiant of her death Noble Six brought her knife around at the Elites leg but her attack was knocked away and more pressure was applied to her stomach. A small hiss of pain escaped her along with all feeling as the Elite 'smiled' down at her before punching her in the face with its free hand. Blotches of black appeared all over her vision and before long blackness is all she could see as she dropped into unconsciousness.

~/~

**Jaor 'Amasee, Reach**

Jaor looked over the Demon he'd been told to keep alive. It was a miracle from the Gods themselves that his squad hadn't killed her in their attempts to 'subdue' her. He'd called out to them on numerous times when it had appeared they would kill her. But each time she'd managed to dodge out the way and continue fighting, despite being mortally wounded. Jaor wasn't completely sure why Field Marshal 'Rithinee wanted this Human, but he had a feeling he would soon find out as he threw the Demon over his shoulders.

" _Pick up its helmet!"_  He growled his fool of a Zealot who'd almost killed her. The Zealot grunted back before sauntering over to pick up the damaged helmet.

Jaor turned his attention to the sky as the sound of a Phantoms engine caught his attention and soon after the streamlined purple vessel flew into view and stopped over them. He waited for the gravity lift to appear and when it did he stepped into the green light, which floated him up, into the belly of the Phantom.

The inside of the Phantom itself was empty, bar the pilot and two Spec-Ops Sangheili. Both of them stood either side of the pilot and remained hidden in the darkness. Jaor dumped the Demon on the floor and called to the pilot to take off. A grunt of confirmation was thrown back at him and turned around to see the only survivor of his squad; Lak 'Valisee.

" _Why did you ignore my orders?"_ Jaor growled,  _"I specifically told you we needed the Demon alive!"_

" _Why must we keep the Demon alive? What is so important about this one? There are always more of them out there, defiling the artefacts of the Gods."_  Lak responded, tossing the Demons helmet next to its prone form.

" _We shall find out when we reach Field Marshal 'Rithinee,"_  Jaor said.  _"Now go get the binder for the Demon."_

" _Of course Field Marshal 'Amasee,"_  Lak assured, his voice holding a small hint of mockery that Jaor decided he would deal with later. Leaning up against the wall opposite the Demon Jaor studied its blood splattered face.

It lacked the usual softness he'd seen on most of the Humans that did not fight them, but it still held youth. To the side of one of her closed eyes a large, dark purple mark was fading into view. Something that had probably been caused by his swift punch to her face, the knowledge caused Jaor to smirk for a moment before his eyes moved on. An angry pink line appeared to have been carved onto her face, running from the right side of her jaw and up, over her eye and into the short mess of blood matted hair. It tugged tightly at some of the pale skin around it and where it curved in at her mouth it seemed to pull her lips into a constant sneer.

It was at that moment that Lak returned with the binder. Jaor watched as the Zealot pulled the Demons armored hands together and place the binder between its hands before activating them. In an instant rock hard blue plasma encircled her wrists and Lak let her drop back to the floor with a thud.

" _Satisfied, Field Marshal?"_  Lak growled to him.

" _Very, Zealot."_  Jaor gave a calm reply that was accompanied by a small taunting lift of his head, a challenge to the Zealot if he ever saw one. Lak exhaled another growl before strolling around to the other side of the Phantom. Amused by his Zealots reaction Jaor released a small throaty chuckle that soon faded into silence that stayed with him for the remainder of the short journey.

~/~

**Roh 'Rithinee, Reach**

Roh stood with his three Zealots as they waited for the Phantom to return. All of them were decked out in their usual weapons: Vito with his simple, but effective, Needle Rifle, Luro with his Concussion Rifle and finally N'tho with his heavy Fuel Rod Gun. Everyone –including Roh- carried an energy sword to make them even more deadly in close combat.

Roh liked to believe that his team was prepared for every eventuality, but there had been teams just like his that had easy fallen to the Demons. Curling his hand into a fist Roh thought of his brother and while he may be angry towards the Demon that killed him, he was equally angry at the Prophets who may as well of killed them all.

A deep hum brought Roh out of his thoughts as he looked up at the sky to see the Phantom return. Soon after appearing it came to a stop above the ground and two figures descended via the green lift. One of them he recognised right away as the Field Marshal. The distinct protrusions on top of the deep purple helmet were what gave it away, along with how he barked commands at the Zealot behind him. Roh also noticed that the Demon was slung over his shoulder; its hands were bound together with the distinctive blue light that was used throughout the Covenant.

Waiting at his position for the Field Marshal to make his way over Roh stole a glance back to the cave. He hadn't returned since he'd last left and although not much time had passed, it felt like it had been much longer. Roh had also refused to think about what the Oracle had told him, now wasn't the time and while he couldn't just stand by and allow the Prophets use his people, getting himself killed for Heresy wasn't on his agenda either.

" _Field Marshal 'Rithinee?"_  A deep voice called as the Field Marshal that had just arrived, reached them.

Roh turned to greet the newcomers,  _"That is me. I trust our Demon is still alive?"_  Roh eyed the black and red armored figure that was slung over his shoulder, along with the helmet his Zealot was holding. Two cracks were visible on the visor and it made Roh wonder how wounded the Demon was.

" _Your Demon is alive, she is merely unconscious,"_  He growled back, insulted that Roh would think him incapable of capturing a Demon. The Field Marshal's attitude would've surprised Roh had he not decided to look up Jaor's service record.

The record itself had been average in length and while Jaor had a few notable achievements to his name there was always one flaw mentioned; his arrogance. A trait that didn't bode well in Sangheili culture was always dragging down Jaor's record. It appeared to get many of those under his command killed and as he noticed the Demon slung over his solider and its lack of extra bindings, Roh wondered if Jaor's arrogance would kill them all today. After all, any credible Sangheili knew how dangerous and heavy a Demon was.

" _We shall see,"_  Roh murmured.  _"Bring her inside the cave and let us see if what the Oracle says is true."_

Roh turned, not waiting for an answer. He was anxious to get this over with as the whole discovery had been a lot of trouble; he only hoped it was worth it. As they began to cross into the dimly purple lit cave human sounding groans could be heard and they all turned they attention to the Demon who was beginning to wake up.

~/~

**Noble Six**

The first sensation to hit her was pain and, oh boy, did it hit her. Her muscles screamed in pain as did her face and, in fact, the whole of her body. The biofoam had begun to do its job but it hadn't completely finished sealing the plasma wounds that had been inflicted on her body. A groan escaped her and she inwardly cursed to herself, now whoever had her knew she was awake. However, the fact remained that she didn't know who had her but that mystery was soon solved when she heard the tale-tale growling and barking of Elites.

Six stiffened and took stock of what she knew: her hands were bound, there were multiple Elites surrounding her, her helmet was missing –she only hoped they hadn't found DOT- and the only weapon she had was Emile's kukri that she'd strapped to her leg for a reason she couldn't currently recall. The odds weren't in her favor, but she wasn't labelled hyper lethal for no reason. She didn't need any fancy weapons; all she needed were her fists and the right opportunity.

She could feel the Elite under her loosen its grip as her weight was obviously growing too much for him to bear. Six smirked internally. All she needed to do was wait for the Elite holding her to weaken enough for her to overpower him and take him out.

For the short walk that continued Six came up with a few rough plans in her head. Each one was different to the other, taking in to account different variables and if some of the actions in her original plan were stopped.

The voice that spoke next was something that Six hadn't expected and if should had to, she'd guess that it was and AI, "A Reclaimer! How wonderful, the  _Librarian_  will be pleased."

Six frowned at the strange pitch the AI took on when it said 'Librarian' but made no indication that she was aware of the conversation.

The rumbling voice of an Elite spoke to the AI with a few others contributing to the conversation.

"If the Reclaimer deems is necessary then I shall allow you to enter."

More rumbling.

"Yes. Now bring the Reclaimer here."

Six felt herself moving, and as she did the Elite beneath her began feeling weaker but she had little time to think more of the matter as she was stood upright in front of a huge shiny metal door. As soon as she managed to regain her composure three orange beams shot out and hit her body. Where she expected pain Six was only greeted by a small tingling sensation that disappeared quickly and a loud rumble echoed through the cave. The walls shook with the rumble and she knew that it would distract the Elites, if only for a second.

Taking advantage of the situation Six quickly unsheathed the kukri and turned on the Elite that was behind her. The Elite had no time to react and was soon dispatched of as the kukri was embedded in through its eye. Her lips tugged into a smirk and she wrenched the knife out of the beasts head before charging at the next one, which was holding her helmet. In the spit second it too her to charge at the Elite it pulled out its energy sword and was about to swipe at her when she ducked low, kicked out its legs with one of her own and pounced on it.

Its head rocked back and revealed the vulnerable gab between the armor, which she managed to exploit by slashing across its neck. As its blood splashed back at her, Six mentally crossed off a second Elite from her assumed list of six.

Quickly sheathing the kukri, Six scooped up and activated the energy sword before turning around and jumping back onto her feet just in time to block an attack from one of the others. With both hands occupied with holding the energy sword in an awkward manor Six pushed forwards with all the strength she had in both arms.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement and with a big push to the side she managed to sweep to the Elites sword away from her long enough to kick it back and send it flying through the now open door and into another Elite.

Six quickly stepped backwards to keep the two Elites that had attempted to flank her, in front of her. They all stood facing each other for a split second before the Elite on the right lunged at her with his energy sword. Stepping to the side, Six caught the Elites blade between her own and tilted hers to the side. But before she could disarm her opponent the other Elite swung down at her and she was forced to back off.

As she backed off she took a chance and managed to place a well-aimed round house kick to the Elites back. The Elite went stumbling to her right and within a few seconds Six had charged forward to stab it in the gut. Her attack hit and the Elite crumpled to the floor in a heap, not completely dead but not currently a threat.

The other Elite roared and charged at her with a flurry of attacks that she just managed to keep up with. It's skill with the blade would've the only thing to make it difficult, but with her speed and battle instincts she managed to keep up. It lunged to her left and she parried it right back before launching her own attack as she tried to keep on the offensive. She knew she would have to dispatch him soon as there were still two left and so Six created an opportunity for her to finish him off.

The Elite brought his weapon around for another attack and Six brought her own around to once again capture it between the two prongs of her blade. As soon as her opponent's weapon was caught in her own she twisted her violently to the side and forced him to let go.

In a split second she shook his sword away from hers.

In another split second she swiped her energy sword across his neck, tearing through the flesh and burning through any armor or shield that would've offered up any resistance. The beasts head lolled back and a small amount of blood managed to spray back at her before she swiftly kicked him to the floor.

Coughing to her side caught her attention and without any hesitation she stabbed the Elite she'd already downed, right through the back. The coughing ceased and as she pulled her blade away he fell to the floor with a thud.

Harsh, long breaths escaped Six. She was still too tired to continue to fight like this, there had to be somewhere she could go. Something around her gut tingled with the distinct feeling of pain and Six looked down to find blotches of red blood oozing from her bodysuit. The wound wasn't deep and it wouldn't slow her down much, but that only meant something if she could escape. And as if some form of God was listening, an escape route more or less offered itself up.

"Oh my, Reclaimer! We must leave this outpost now if you are to survive!" The AI from before exclaimed.

"Lead on," She murmured in reply as a glowing blue orb floated into view. Although, she didn't trust it quite yet, it appeared to have the only ride off the planet. What happened after it helped her escape would depend entirely on what it wanted.

"Of course. However, our route is compromised by two more of the creatures you just defeated."

"I'll deal with them, could you take that with you?" Six inclined her head towards the helmet –and DOT- which lay on the floor next to one of the first Elites she'd downed.

"I will," The orb answered. A blue light appeared from his eye and surrounded her helmet, which was then lifted off the ground and disappeared after the orb as he left the room. The orb zoomed past the two Elites who'd recovered and noticing that the orb had her helmet their heads snapped in her direction.

What happened next surprised Six because only one of the Elites charged at her, while the other yelled something at it. The Elite charging at her ignored what the other had said and continued to run at her, its blade out and looking menacing as it did. Six could see that the Elite was distracted by its rage, as the Elites usually got when one of their own was downed. Deciding to see how much she could push it she sent it a smirk, which only grew when the beast let out a roar and sped up.

They both met with their blades and Six again threw herself into another duel. But, as the Elite continued to throw attacks at her, she began to notice how sloppy and easy they became to block.

Until one took her by surprise.

She'd just brushed aside another attack when suddenly his sword was at her again. It was only thanks to her astoundingly quick reactions that it didn't do more damage than skimming her armor. The slip up annoyed her, and Six decided to make up for it by taking her opponent out there and then.

As he was still recoiling from his latest attack she kicked out with her foot and landed her heavily armored foot in the center of his chest. The force of the kick appeared to wind the Elite for a second before she swung down with her energy sword. Slicing through the Elite's thick flesh and burning through its armor until the sword would go no further. The Elite let out a pain filled whine as its grip slackened and its weapon clattered to the floor.

In the background she heard the footfalls of the other Elite along with its frustrated chattering that told her that it regretted not jumping in earlier.

Wrenching the sword from her fallen opponents body she lifted it up to prepare for another fight when suddenly, the blade of the sword flicked out of existence leaving nothing but the handle cradled awkwardly in her cuffed hands. Six mentally grimaced to herself and knew there was no time to pick up another as the Elite arrived in front of her, sword ready.

Six knew she didn't have the energy or the maneuverability to take down the Elite, especially in hand to sword combat. Acting as quickly as she could Six knocked his hand out the way before he had the chance to attack. Jumping over him, she pushed away his hand before dashing out of the entrance and further into the metal structure.

~/~

**Roh 'Rithinee**

Roh was shoved away by the Demon with such force that he stumbled over one of the bodies of his Zealots. As he took in the carnage of the cave, Roh could barely believe what had happened in a matter of a few moments. One minute the Demon was slumped over Jaor's shoulder and the next she'd knocked him over by kicking Vito into him, killed Luro, N'tho, Jaor and Lak with such brutality that even a Jiralhanae would be put to shame; had she not managed to add her own form of fluidity into it. Seeing his comrades and long-time partners slaughtered in front of him Vito had become enraged and while he'd put up a good fight against the Demon, his broken and bloodied body said otherwise.

No sound escaped Roh. He knew he could have stopped this. He should have made sure the Demon was properly restrained and-

Roh stopped himself.

What was done was done and clearly the Forerunners wanted the Demon alive. That much was clear from the way the Oracle had offered the Demon a way out. Now, two decisions were presented before him: follow after the Demon and leave the Covenant or call for reinforcements and remain in the Covenant.

His decision should've been easy and instantaneous. But given what the Oracle had told him it only made everything more difficult. He'd been with the Covenant since the beginning -as it had formed when he was much younger- but he'd always been told to believe the word of the Oracles.

Time seemed to stretch on before him as he mulled over the implications that his decisions could have. If he chased after the Demon without contacting anyone then something might be suspected of him. However, if he stayed with the Covenant then he wouldn't be able to change anything as many would sooner label him a heretic than listen.

_That's it_ , Roh thought, determination coursing through his mind. His decision was made and while he would miss the Covenant that had almost been like a strange and distant family, it was for the best. One thing Roh did hope was that his decision didn't affect his family back home on Sangheilious. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if it did.

With the knowledge that he would come back with a way to stop the madness of the prophets Roh murmured a few words of respect for his fallen brethren. Their deaths wouldn't go unpunished; he would make sure the prophets paid for  _their_ heresy and perhaps even the Demon would feel the end of his sword. Roh straightened up, clipped his sword back onto his leg and with one last glance back at his team he sprinted off to catch up with the Demon.

All the while he muttered curses to the prophets under his breath.


	4. High Above The Ground

"Speech"

_"Sangheili"_

_Thoughts or words that are stressed upon._

 

* * *

**Noble Six**

Her breaths fell short and heavy. Her movement was a cross between a run and a jog. The fatigue was catching up with her and while she was a Spartan, there was only so much she could endure. She could feel her determination slipping and her vision narrowed until it was settled on the glowing blue orb she was following. Why? She didn't know. She only hoped that it had a way out for her so that she could live to fight for humanity another day.

Sleek, glowing walls whizzed past her as the orb led her deeper into the ground. The few doors they passed simply opened before them and she wondered how far behind the last Elite was. But, her wondering was stopped when they stopped before a huge door. This one obviously hadn't opened straight away for them.

_But why?_

"It appears this door requires a while longer to open," The orb said and after what felt like minutes of waiting the door opened to reveal a massive room. The architecture was the same as the corridor she'd been running through; blue glowing lights were embedded into the sleek silver walls and floor as well as the sharp and complex webs of straight lines that ran the length of the rooms.

The few moments Six spared to look at the architecture took her breath away. She could appreciate the beauty and the simple yet complex flare it had. The designs seemed so human, yet so alien. But her sightseeing was cut short when everything around her started shaking. Her head instantly snapped up to the orb, who gave her a quick -but cryptic- reply.

"Travelling through Slipsteam-space in unsuitable conditions is not advised."

Six frowned, _how does it plan on_ …

She stopped herself short because at that moment a large expanse of the room's floor slid away and a platform rose up from deeper underground. What caught her attention wasn't the platform but what was on it.

The structure was at least fifteen meters tall, with what she guessed was the main body, being held five meters off the floor on top of thin and fragile looking stands that were of the same design of the room. There were four of the stands and all of them exited the main body at an outwards angle. The tops of the stands were chunkier than the rest and from what Six could tell, they weren't physically held in place. A sharp but streamlined body rested upon the stands and continued the same design she'd seen on everything else. It stood another ten meters tall with more a few pieces of metal fanning out at the sides and floating against its sharp spine at the back. What she'd decided to label as the cockpit was about ten meters wide at the base and steadily sloped inwards to a width of five meters at the top. At each side of the cockpit's base were a set of 'wings' that –like everything else- weren't physically attached to it and were split down the middle.

Six's eyes traveled all around what she could only guess was a ship of some sorts. A ship who's makers had evidently had a geometrical design in mind, but also ensured it held the same decoration as the structure she was currently in. Many questions filtered through her mind, ranging from 'who were these people?' to 'how did we miss this?'

She was about to ask the orb something when a soft blue light reached down from the center of the silver ship and the orb called out to her.

"We must leave this place now Reclaimer," it called. "This way!"

Her eyes narrowed as she watched the orb float up the light with her helmet in tow. A frustrated sigh escaped her while she curled her hands into a tight ball and dashed after it.

The inside of the ship was softly illuminated by blue lights that lined the walls. At the front, in front of a large window, a blue holographic interface flickered into existence over a blue glowing block of silver metal. The interface had a simple circular image surrounded by many other blue straight lined shaped buttons. A single small red button was positioned off to the left and at a right-angle to the whole of the interface were multiple square screens. All of them contained different images that Six had a feeling were to do with the status of the ship.

The sound of her boots hitting the metal floor echoed around her as she walked closer to the control panel. The orb was already there, placing her helmet in a small beam of light that allowed it to hover in mid-air. As the helmet was held suspended in air, Six's thoughts briefly flickered to the AI that she hoped was still there. But before Six could contemplate on DOT's status the orb spoke to her.

"Welcome to the Forerunner planet escape shuttle _Liberator_ ," it said, whizzing over the control panel. "Press the center button to prepare for launch."

Despite the doubts she held Six pressed the button and braced herself for the worst. But, as her fingers left the tangible button nothing happened. No explosions, no one jumped out with a gun in hand and tried to kill her. The only thing that did happen was the small shudder that reverberated throughout the ship and ended with sensation that they were hovering above the floor. A quick glance out of the window confirmed Six's suspicion before she turned her attention to the orb.

_Time to get some answers._

"What are your intentions?" She growled, keeping the question as vague as possible in hopes she'd yield more information.

"My intentions?" The orb repeated. "Why to help the inheritors of my creator's legacy, of course. I was also given the objective of getting a Reclaimer to the _Librarian_ on Requiem."

Six noticed a sharp change in pitch when the orb mentioned Librarian and frowned at the action. But, gathering information took priority at the moment so she pressed on.

"Who is the Librarian?"

"The Librarian is the leader of the life workers of the Forerunner ecumene." There was no change in pitch this time and it left Six wondering whether or not her fatigue was getting to her and causing her to hear things.

"What does she intend to do with me?"

The orb appeared to sadden slightly, "I'm afraid I was not given that information. All I know is that it is very important."

Six frowned at the orb. Something was wrong here, she could feel it. It was niggling at the back of her mind and whenever she tried to focus on it, it would simple slip through her fingers. However, she wasn't done questioning the orb.

This time she decided to take a different approach, "What is this facility?"

"Outpost zero-seven was originally built for transportation to in-system planets, but was later turned into a means to evacuate the planet to the nearest shield world. Because of this the structure had to be heavily reinforced and redesigned in order to withstand opening Slip-space portals. The majority of these Outposts were destroyed in order to prevent the Flood from gaining access to the shield worlds."

Six processed all the information she was being told and some of it opened up more questions than answers. Subjects such as the 'Flood' made her wonder why an obviously highly advanced race was scared of water. _Unless, it's a label for something much worse._ Something that had these 'Forerunners' worried enough that they would destroy entire facilities to stop it.

Her short trail of thought was stopped when the orb yelled something out to her.

"Reclaimer, numerous life-signals have been detected entering my Outpost. The self-destruct program is available for activation if you do not wish for them to follow. To activate it, press the yellow button on the far right."

Without hesitation Six quickly reached out and pressed the button. As soon as she did, the screen above that section changed to three symbols in a line. The symbols began to rapidly change, confirming that it was a countdown, but for how long Six had no idea.

A noise at the back caught her attention and Six snapped around to see if anything was there. Her eyes were met with nothing except the closing of the hole she'd come in. As soon as the hole hissed shut relief washed over her.

She'd made it.

But, she was alone. The thought hit her as she slumped against the wall. She dug her hand into the satchel on her leg and pulled out four dog tags; Jorge's, Thom's, Kat's and Emile's. She knew that Thom was the one she'd replaced, the one that some members of the team blamed themselves too much for his death. Curling her hand into a fist around the tags Six felt a strange feeling envelope her. It was something she hadn't felt in a long time. Loss.

It was a small niggling sensation at the back of her head; almost non-existent. It hadn't always been like that, but everything had been so different back then. The last time she'd felt the full force of the emotion was when she'd lost her parents all those years ago. She'd lost one to each enemy of the UNSC; Insurrectionists and The Covenant. Like many other children she'd been promised the chance to gain vengeance and oh boy had she. Since being pulled out of Beta Company she'd eradicated as many militia groups as she could and then she'd gone on to eliminate as many Covenant as she could. But, there'd been the time she'd spent in a team.

She'd spent over a month in Noble team and despite her efforts to remain emotionally distant from her team, it had been inevitable that they'd become close. She couldn't remember how it'd happened, but she supposed that working in close proximity with them had just led to it happening. She was sad that they were gone. Although, she probably wasn't as sad as a civilian would be. But, that was because she was a solider and they'd been soldiers. Back when she'd lost her parents she'd reacted much differently; sadness had overtaken her at first before changing into rage. But the rage she'd built up back then was something that she'd honed over the years in order to be the best killer she could be.

"Your current combat skin is damaged," the orb piped up. "The ship's logs state that there is a single combat skin left in the storage compartment at the back of the transport."

Six only graced the orb with a nod before making her way over to the back of the ship. She noticed straight away the compartment the orb had been talking about, after all there was half a blue sphere poking out from the wall right next to the doors. Placing a hand on the orb Six wondered what this combat skin looked like. Then, as the door hissed open Six got her first look at Forerunner combat skin but it was safe to say that she was unimpressed.

The advanced looking armor was scorched in multiple places, with burn holes piercing through one arm and the legs. What she guessed had been a silver colour was now a tainted and tarnished dark grey. A frown creased onto her face and Six pulled the armor set out of the storage compartment. But, just as she was about press the button again something on the floor caught her eye. It was relatively small and appeared have a less elaborate design of the ship she was currently in. With the combat skin weighing down her one arm Six placed its helmet on the floor and scooped up the small object.

It was heavier than she had anticipated and just smaller than her hand. Down the front she could feel convex groves that felt like they formed different symbols. Figuring she'd investigate it more later, Six clipped it to the magnetic strip on her thigh and scooped up the helmet before returning to the orb.

"It appears that the combat skin is severely damaged," it said, turning in her direction. "A shame as a class eleven combat skin would offer much more protection than you current class two."

Six raised an eyebrow in mild confusion. Was it comparing her armor to the almost completely battered piece she was holding? If the piece she was holding was so good she wondered what kind of weapon could have done so much damage. Her mouth twitched at the thought. Weapons like that could win the UNSC the war. It was then that Six decided that when –not if- she returned from Requiem she would find a way to bring all its treasure home and help the UNSC beat the Covenant. Another thought then hit her and wondering if it would work, Six asked the orb.

"Would it be possible to incorporate this 'combat skin' into my current one?"

The orb didn't say anything for a few moments as it mulled over her question. When it finished it whizzed around her as it spoke, "It should be possible, given the right amount of time and resources."

Six nodded, "Time to leave?

"Of course, while you were acquiring the combat skin I took the liberty of imputing the co-ordinates to the slipstream-space portal that we would be using. All you need to do Reclaimer is press the green button to the left."

Before blinding stumbling forward and pressing the button Six stopped to think for a moment, well aware that the symbols on the countdown were being to whittle down to the last few. She wanted to go to this Requiem place, but not for the reasons the orb had said, instead she wanted the tech to help humanity prevail. However, she was sure that the orb wouldn't take that lying down, but that didn't mean she was going to mindlessly go through with its plan. But before she could even being to decide on what to do something knocked her out the way and took over the control panel.

Six cursed to herself as she looked up to see the Elite from earlier ripple into existence and try to use the control panel. Apparently he wasn't getting anywhere as he soon hammered down a fist on the interface. But immediately after he did he glanced at her, and what Six guessed was the Elite version of a grin curled onto his face. He lunged for her and she just about managed to dodge, all the while the orb was yelling at the alien to stop interfering or it would be eliminated.

Not wanting to give the Elite an opening to catch her, Six's eyes locked onto the Elite seconds before it disappeared into nothing. Six listened carefully and darted her eyes around the room in order to find any sign of where the Elite was.

There was a split second between her noticing the Elite and it tackling her. She'd attempted to again dodge out of the way and deliver a hard blow to the back of its head, but evidently her plan had been halted before it could begin. It pushed her towards the control panel with the force of its tackle and using her still cuffed hands to its advantage it started trying to use her to change something.

"Y…ou mu-st no-t-," it growled to her in broken English.

Paying little interest to its words Six resisted against whatever buttons it wanted to press and tugged the Elite with all her strength. The motion brought the Elite along her side and crashing into the control panel. With the Elite still recoiling, Six managed to sweep out its legs but as she did so she unintentionally altered the set path. Unaware of her mistake, Six slammed her hand on the green button.

There was a silent hum, but before it could register the small ship shot forwards and into the dark portal that had appeared before it. Just as they entered the portal the outpost behind them began to explode, giving the ship a quick boost as it entered the portal.

The darkness of slipspace was the only thing visible through the window. The sterile like lights where the one source of illumination in the ship, but Six had no time to stand and admire it all. After all there was an Elite dragging itself up from the floor right next to her.

Not wanting to give it a chance to attack her again, Six aimed the strongest roundhouse kick she could muster at it. But, her movement must've been sluggish from fatigue and she found her kick hitting below her mark of its head. The Elite grunted at the contact and tipped to its right before grabbing her foot as she wasn't fast enough to pull back.

Her reaction to the grab was instantaneous and watch she did next was the quickest thing she could muster. She wrenched her leg towards her, but the Elite held strong and she was pulled towards it. This however did not affect plan as she then slammed her foot down –forcing the Elite to let go- and at the same time she delivered a swift uppercut with both tied hands. As the Elite was sent stumbling backwards, Six dragged in a breath of oxygen and reached down for Emile's kuriki and began bringing it down one the alien in front of her.

Instead of stabbing it through the neck as she intended, the Elite managed to grab her hands and twist them so that she dropped the weapon. Her body was then forced to bend backwards at an awkward angle as the Elite kicked out the back of her legs, which caused her to crash towards the floor as the Elite twisted her back round so that she landed on her back.

With the breath knock out of her Six attempted to roll out the way, but she was too slow as the Elite's giant foot came crashing down on her chest; crushing into her wounds and sending her nerves haywire. A pain filled moan escaped her as she felt the biofoam over her wounds crack, and the warm sensation of blood seep out of them. Her vision began to go blurry and as she tried to think of a way to get out of the situation her thoughts went to the strange device she'd strapped to her leg; perhaps it could do something to help her.

As the pressure on her chest increased, her vision became more blurry and her hands fumbled more frantically as they tried to reach her leg. Just as the Elite noticed what she was reaching for, Six managed to press the buttons and as she did the ship shuddered and out of the corner of her eye she noticed a blue glow. The motion of the ship destabilised the Elite and allowed her to roll out from under it. Then she swept out its legs so their positions were essentially reversed.

As she dropped her weight onto the Elite another rockier shudder –as if entering atmosphere - rippled through the ship, but Six held steady. Pinning its arms under her legs, Six lent forwards and applied pressure to the Elites neck using her forearm.

"This is for Noble, Hinge-Head," She snarled, increasing the pressure. And evil, sadistic grin made its way onto her face as she put her arm down more and the Elite began crawling at her hands even more. Its attempts at breathing increased and eventually descended into choking.

Suddenly, the orb yelled something that Six didn't quite hear and the temperature inside the ship began to increase and Six could hear the groan of the ship as they continued their decent through a planet's atmosphere. As she sat choking her enemy, the sound of the heat hitting the front of the ship roared behind her and everything around her shook. Suddenly, the ship pitched forwards until it was almost facing downwards and the motion dragged Six to the back along with the orb and the Elite. She looked over to the orb and saw it was holding her helmet and praying that she could still wear it she stretch out her hand.

"Give me the helmet!" She yelled above the roaring heat that was trying to bake them alive. The orb complied with her request and dropped the helmet into her hands. Six quickly shoved it on and sighed in relief as the familiar hissing sound filled her ears.

Her relief didn't last long as the ship then abruptly smashed into something solid and the motion threw Six and the Elite to the front of the ship. Blinding light hit her eyes and was the last thing she saw before she hit the glass everything went black.

/#537- Guardian's Approach. Accessing…

/ATTENTION!/

/Collision Imminent!/

/Reclamier Status: Poor

/Reclamier In Need Of Immediate Medical Assistance

/Wirelessly Hacking Into Local Networks/

/Networks found. Filtering/

/Potential Network Found/

/Designation: NEST/

/Collision Vector Changed/

~/~

**NEST, Diego Garcia**

A large shudder ripped through the NEST base of Diego Garcia. The occupants of the base weren't as surprised as they should be. After all, they'd been tracking the cause of the quake since it hit Earth's atmosphere. Initially the whole of the base had believed that it was wave of Autobots, but they had confirmation that it was not of Cybertronian origin. The news was not something that eased the leader of NEST's mind.

William Lennox quickly made his way up the steep flight of open stairs up to a platform, which currently surrounded Optimus Prime. He strode along the top walkway before coming to a stop in front of Optimus. Behind Will, on a large screen was General Morshower whose picture would sporadically flicker from time to time. In the shadow of Optimus stood three more beings like him and a few groups of soldiers who were ready to go to the crash site.

"This is defiantly not you guys right?" Will checked. "Not even the message that was referred to General Morshower at the Pentagon?"

"I'm certain; neither of these things are of Cybertronian origin." Optimus assured.

Running his hand down the side of his face in frustration Will struggled to find his words, while in the background the General also appeared disconcerted. He however, remained silent.

"So this is a whole new…alien?" The word 'alien' felt strange on his tongue, though that was probably because he worked with them and had never imagined meeting _new_ ones.

"I would not worry, Major. No matter what events occur, we will always stand with humanity."

"Okay," Will murmured before asking, "What about the signal the General forwarded here? What did you guys get from that?"

"The message was highly encrypted, but I believe with our collective effort we have managed to gain the general meaning." Optimus paused, "It was a distress message that was requesting human aid for a 'Reclaimer' and contained a set of co-ordinates, which we cannot convert."

It was then that the General spoke up, "do you mean to say that the language this message was in could be understood?"

"That is correct General," Optimus started. "We were concerned when the message appeared to be in Earth's English. But, we have not ruled out the possibility that they have visited the World Wide Web as we did."

"That may be true, but they specifically requested _human_ aid," the General frowned. "We need to find out what these people want and why they need _our_ aid. I'll leave the rest in your capable hands Major."

"Yes, Sir."

Morshower's screen flicked off and Will turned back to Optimus, who appeared deep in thought. But, when the large being noticed Will's eyes on him he spoke.

"We should go," Optimus said. "These beings may be in serious trouble."

The phrase weighed heavily on everyone's mind as they all wondered if the cause of the crash was in pursuit. But, it was with that thought that everyone loaded up all they needed and left the base as quickly as possible.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry I haven't updated this, everything got busy and I completely forgot I had it here too. Thankyou for the comments guys :)


	5. This Is Not Your Home

_Thoughts or words stressed upon_

**_Thoughts that are stressed upon_ **

"Talking"

 

* * *

~/~

**Six, Approx. Fifteen Minutes After The Crash**

Six's entire body felt numb and her head was throbbing. She just managed to crack open her eyes and was once again hit by light that was filtered through her helmet. She glanced down at her hands and managed to make out that they were no longer bound together; at least something had gone her way.

Groaning, Six rolled over and discovered that she was lying on soft sand. Scattered around her were shards that bared little resemblance to shattered glass. The pieces were much bigger and appeared more metal in composition. No wonder she felt like she had bruises all over.

With everything still foggy and her limbs so sluggish it brought her shame, Six eventually managed to drag herself up and prop herself against the husk of the ship. As she sat there she thought; the pain of her wounds beginning to get to her. She wondered if this was the end. If after everything she was finally going to meet her end. She didn't regret anything; she had _nothing_ to regret. No loved ones, no team and no friends were waiting for her to return home. They'd all been swallowed up in the war and for as long as she could remember she'd been alone. Apart from the only two days of her life she remembered before becoming a Spartan; the death of her Father by insurrectionist hands and the death of her Mother by the Covenant.

Nausea suddenly rolled through her, but she was not sick.

The pain began to grow, but she did not cry out.

Instead, her eyes darted around the dry landscape that was occupied by few things. Perhaps this was the placed named Requiem? That had been there intended destination. However, as she took a closer look the things she could see seemed familiar, but she could not place them. Her mind was much too clouded for that.

Six chuckled quietly to herself for no particular reason and sometime afterwards a floating orb appeared above the rolling horizon. It was the strange AI. The orb glided close to her and when it reached her it came to a stop in front of her.

"Your adversary still remains unconscious," the orb began. "Help shall arrive to attend to your wounds soon."

A familiar sound in the distance caused Six to frown, and noticing it the orb spoke to her, "The help I requested. They are primarily human as we have landed on Erde-Tyrere instead of Requiem."

There were many bits of information that stood out to Six in what the orb had just said and some of it didn't sound too good.

The orb made it sound as if the help was not just human, but also alien in origin, which was something she knew could not be possible. All the aliens that they'd come across wanted to kill them and she highly doubted they would even work with innies.

Then there was the fact that they were on a Human planet despite the fact she didn't recognise the name; a fact which she frowned at. There was something off about it and as she looked out over the horizon she noticed it; there was hardly anything there. Most cities usually had high reaching skyscrapers and even places like where she was currently would be occupied by something, be it farmland, parks or housing. But, this appeared to be neither. The colour blue was the only thing she could see apart from the burnt sand that surrounded the surprisingly undamaged ship.

The loud sound of engines she'd heard earlier prevented her from thinking any further and she instead tried to glance around the side of the ship. Six just about managed to catch a glimpse of a few strange military vehicles that she'd never seen before, along with a few _less_ militarised. They looked too old to be anything the UNSC –or anyone- still used and while she thought about it being innies, the thought was quickly dismissed. The inneis were sometimes better equipped than the UNSC led the public to believe and with the war going on, it would only make it easier for them.

Six shifted as the ground beneath her rattled slightly and the sound of very heavy footsteps could be heard. She kept her eyes on where she knew they would appear and soon enough something came into sight.

Only it wasn't what she was expecting.

It was –for lack of a better term- a giant, red and blue robot. Roaming her eyes up and down the giant being she knew that if it decided it wanted to kill her, she wouldn't have much of a chance in her current state. Although there was still a chance she could defeat it, but that depended on how many others there were; perhaps she could outrun it?

The robot seemed to notice her as its gaze dropped and it gave her a look of kindness and sympathy. She wasn't fooled.

Six returned the look with a cold stare before looking at the orb, who looked very interested in the robot. So interested that it floated over to it, maybe she could use it as a distraction to get away? She wasn't usually one to run away from a battle. But, she wasn't a fool when it came to engaging the enemy either.

With her decision made Six began dragging herself onto her feet. She then turned on her active camouflage, which led to a warning message -about the use time on it being halved- appearing. A minute or so would be enough time to put distance between her and the robot, or so she hoped. Turning, Six began to limp away at a fast pace as her leg had been damaged in the crash.

As she left she heard human yelling and glanced back to see human soldiers appear next to the robot and talk to it. The orb was still hovering in the air next to the robot's head before it decided to investigate the soldiers, who appeared a little concerned.

Six turned her attention away from them and settled on seeing if Dot was still functioning, "Dot?"

"Yes, Noble Six?" came the usual calm reply.

"Any damage?"

"No, but I am detecting that you are severely injured and that the armor's cloaking device is not working to optimal standards."

The group of vehicles appeared in her vision and Six quickly climbed into the driver's side of one of the more robust looking ones. There were two other vehicles that looked like they could take a few hits, but she doubted they'd be able to hold her weight and they looked more like civilian transport.

"I know, Dot. Can you connect to any UNSC frequencies?" Six wouldn't lose hope; someone had to be out there.

"Unfortunately I am unable to find any." Six's hope dropped into oblivion and she slumped against the seat. "However, I am detecting multiple frequencies that have little or no security by UNSC standards."

Six sighed, _where the hell am I? This is can't be a colony!_

She took a shuddering breath before asking Dot to see if she could tap into any of them and send out a distress call. Her request was answered with a yes and dumb AI went to work after mentioning that it could take some time due to her limited capabilities. Although Six wasn't completely satisfied with the answer, she would have to make do.

While Dot looked for anything that would help Six, the Spartan in question decided to think about her options when she was safe. Just as Six started the engine she saw both of the cars transform into giant robots; now she was defiantly glad she didn't jump into one of those. They started towards her, but not wanting to stay with the robots a moment longer Six started the car and swiftly maneuvered down the road. Looking in one of the side mirrors, Six saw the two robots transforming back into cars and speeding after her. She pressed down on the accelerator more and was annoyed when her pursuers didn't fall behind at all.

Then, suddenly the radio crackled to life and a grouchy, rough voice spoke, "pull over, now!"

She glanced down at the radio and debated whether or not to answer, but it was at that point that she noticed a very large military looking base coming up on her left. Six debated over what kind of base it really was and when she realised she was getting nowhere soon, she pulled into it when it came up. Six knew it was a mistake when she saw even more old looking vehicles lined up on the asphalt and the robots continued following her; as if they held no fear towards the base.

Wincing from her wounds she began to make a U-turn when one of the robots transformed and grabbed onto the front of her vehicle. With it looking more likely that she'd have to try and fight them off, she made her decision.

As quick as she could, Six jumped out of the vehicle and began running up to the black robot. Without warning a giant metal hand struck out with the intention to grab her, but she swiftly dodged it. Pain shot through her with the movement and she promptly ignored it. With adrenaline pulsating through her veins, she jumped onto the black robot that had grabbed her vehicle. As she began jumping up the robot's arm it tried to shake her off when the other one yelled at it.

"Ironhide! Do not harm her!"

The one called 'Ironhide' grumbled back, "you wouldn't be saying that if she was trying to claw your optics out."

His other arm reached around and managed to grab her bad leg before she could move it. She hissed in pain before the robot placed her on the ground and pinned her down with its hand.

"Primus, she's heavy," it grumbled. "Do you thing Doc."

"Well I would, but your hand is in my way," the other –green- robot grumbled.

"The femme will run away if I move."

"' _The femme'_ can hear you, toasters," Six snarled, pushing at the robot's hand. It wasn't the best idea as it made her chest hurt more.

The green robot looked at her, "do not strain yourself! You're in bad shape."

"Get off me!" Six snarled, pushed harder despite the pain.

"Will you run if I do?" Ironhide rumbled, its metallic face sending her a glare.

"What do you think?!"

The green robot persisted, "we need to heal-"

"No!" Six interrupted him. She pushed even harder against Ironhide's hand and kept going even with the light-headedness and dizziness that was flooding into her. Her teeth were ground together in pain, as she discovered with each push that the back of her ribs were slightly damaged and the skin bruised.

"I don't need help from a damn _alien!_ "

Ironhide's hand lifted a little for just a second, but that was all Six needed. Grinning in satisfaction she rolled away from the hand and catching a deep breath she slowly started backing away. The two robots mirrored her movements by slowly taking steps towards her; the one named Ironhide appearing more irritated than the green one.

Footsteps padded around behind her and she realised that they were undoubtedly human. She read off at least a dozen contacts on her radar and then added more as a blue and red truck came speeding into the base. Six knew that the truck was one of the robots and her thoughts were confirmed when it transformed after a human and the orb materialised from inside it. Six tensed up as she curled her hands into fists and lowered herself into a fighting stance; ready to fight her way out.

When the transformation finished Six noticed that it was the red one who'd appeared so kind. She inwardly snorted at the idea of an alien being kind.

Suddenly another wave of dizziness hit her, but it was much stronger than before and Six felt herself stumble. She tried to clear her head but the dizziness wouldn't go away and the pain of her wounds only increased.

Six looked up and saw a human stood in by the robots along with the orb, which was starting to float towards her. As it did, the robots and single human looked slightly worried about something to do with her. Frowning, she glanced down only to have her eyebrows shoot up –and cause her more pain- in shock at what she saw.

Just above her hip was a huge burnt mess. It was a mix of the bubbled black of the undersuit with the pink of her flesh just appearing in a few spots where the undersuit had thinned out. The only feeling she got from the area was surprisingly just a bit of discomfort. _The nerve endings are probably burnt out,_ Six thought wearily _._

"Reclaimer," the orb said. "You need medical attention, that I-"

"You requested it from an organisation that I don't even know!" Six glared at the robots and the human, turning to the side to see the other humans behind her. "Why would I trust _them?_ " _Why would I trust you?_

"Noble Six," Dot's voice came through the internal speakers. "I have managed to tap into the numerous 'NEST' frequencies in the area, and all a currently consistent with their claims to heal you. I've also found that we are on Earth, but the date appears to be incorrect."

All Six heard was the word Earth; the rest didn't matter. She couldn't believe it. She couldn't comprehend it. Aliens had found Earth. Everything the UNSC had sacrificed had been for nothing. It was... _impossible._ Her whole body felt numb despite the pain she was feeling.

"Noble Six?" Dot questioned, "I believe the date is of importance."

"What's it saying Dot?" Six asked as she snapped out of her daze and turned off her external speakers. She doubted anything the AI would say could give comfort to the fact that there were aliens on Earth. Did the UNSC know about this? She had to tell someone, let someone know!

She was not ready for what the AI had to say next.

"According to what I have found the date appears to be two thousand and eight."

The words hit her with the force of a supernova. Six knew the AI wasn't wrong as they rarely were, if at all. But, it was for that reason that Six was worried. If she was indeed in the year two thousand and eight then what did that mean? How could she get back? And what about these aliens? They weren't around in the future and the Covenant was defiantly Humanity's first contact with an alien race. Did that mean she was somewhere else entirely? She recalled the device she'd found in the ship and what had happened after she'd activated it; did that have something to do with it? Had it somehow sent her to another place? After all slip-space was made up of multiple dimensions, did that somehow have any bearing on her current predicament? She'd heard of the odd case of people disappearing because of slip-space, but she couldn't recall anyone that had returned. Did that mean that she wouldn't be able to return to the fight? And did it also mean that she would never know the outcome of the war?

Six squeezed her fists tighter, knowing that she wouldn't be there, fighting to the very end. She knew that humanity wouldn't survive the Covenant, unless some miracle happened, because the Covenant was just too strong.

She'd lost more than a team today. It was a chilling thought and Six knew that now was not the time to mull over it.

Thanking the AI she turned her external speakers on and caught the tail end of something the soldier had been saying to her.

"-trust us because we want to help you." He appeared legitimately truthful and Six now knew that they were speaking the truth. She had no time to pick and choose the people she wanted to trust and only hoped that these people weren't on the wrong side of the law.

Sighing she spoke words that she hoped she would never regret, "I'll go with you." _For now._

The soldier who'd been prepared for rejection looked taken aback. He stumbled on his words before managing to speak to her, disbelief stark in his voice, "You will?"

She nodded, relaxing her stance in order to reinforce her words.

"Follow Ratchet –I'll have someone escort you- and we'll bring in the other guy from your ship."

"You would be better off killing him," Six snapped, a wooziness working it's into her, but she promptly ignored it. "He'll do the same to you, _if_ he wakes up."

He gave her a dubious look. "Why would he kill us?"

"You're Human."

"What's that got to do with it?" He started confused, "We've never-"

She started forwards aggressively, accentuating each word with a forceful step. "His. Kind. Despise. Humans. They-" she stopped a moment, her breath coming short and her vision blurring as everything became tilted.

Swallowing air she continued on, somewhat less energetic, "they hate us and won't be happy until we're wiped off the face of the universe. S…Still…"

Her legs began to give out and the tilted floor rose up to embrace her.

"Want….to…"

Her vision became more blurred and darkness crept at the edge of her vision. "Risk…?"

Six lost all feeling in her body and her warning was left incomplete. She vaguely registered her legs bucking even more and getting closer to the floor. She felt lighter than air and as darkness encompassed her vision the last thing she registered was Dot calling her.

~/~

**Will Lennox**

Concern and confusion worked their way into Will as he watched the large armored being crumple to the floor. She –he assumed it was a she because of its feminine voice- didn't move from her spot, and no one knew if she was either unconscious or playing a game with them because of the armor. Not even Ratchet could get a scan through it; he'd said that something appeared to be blocking it. Suddenly, something happened that gave everyone an answer, but also made them even more cautious.

"Noble Six is in need of immediate medical attention," a synthetic and relatively emotionless voice said. The voice came from the armor, as if there were two people inside of it. But, it seemed less human and uncaring except for a small hint of concern.

"Right," Will muttered, almost speechless. "Ratchet, you know what to do."

The green Cybertronian walked over to the armored figure and picked her up, "I'll need to be left alone." He glanced down at the figure that seemed to weigh considerably in his hands. "I'll probably need a pair of _experienced_ Human hands."

"I'll have someone meet you at the Med Bay," Will confirmed. "We'll bring the other to you as soon as we can."

"I will make sure they are kept apart," Ratchet growled as he strolled off. The last thing being heard was the synthetic voice.

"In order to ensure optimal medical care is provided, specialised tools are required to remove the armor." Nothing else was heard as Ratched sped up, grumbling the whole way.

After the mech had disappeared Will radioed in for a medic to get down to Ratchet's Med Bay; of which the medic was slightly nervous about. Will knew there wasn't much he could do at the moment, as the only thing they could do was ensure that the two from the crash survived. He wasn't completely sure about the ship as the strange floating orb had told them very little.

 _Speak of the devil_ , Will thought as the orb came floating over to him. _Time to get some answers._

"I want some answers," He insisted as it came to a stop in front of him. "And I want them now."

"Of course Human, I shall tell you all that I can." Came the ever gleeful reply.

"Who're you?" he asked, deciding to start with a simple question.

"I am five-three-seven Guardian's Approach, Monitor of Outpost zero-seven," it said simply.

 _So much for simple,_ Will sighed. He had no idea what it was taking about. Ironhide and Optimus both shifted their stances slightly as they stared at the being that had decided to call them 'hybrids'. Will wasn't sure what to do with the orb after he'd gained all the information he needed. Hell, he didn't even know what to do with the other two when they recovered.

"Should that mean something to me?" He asked.

"The Reclaimer did appear confused like you, but seeing as she blew up my outpost there is no need to explain its function anymore."

"Sounds like my kind of femme," Ironhide commented. "If she's not trying to offline me," he added not so silently.

Will raised an eye brow, "She blew it up? Just like that?"

"She was given the option to use it kill her enemies who she believed would gain knowledge from my outpost." It sounded slightly perturbed at this, "this is something that does not suit Humanity."

"Why'd _you_ say that?"

The orb –which had been floating around them- came to a stop and positioned itself in front of Will.

"Because it is us who know you the most."

The way it was said made it seemed like there would be no more talk on that subject. And given that Will had no idea what its capabilities were, he decided to change to a subject that –he hoped- was safer.

"Why did you call these guys 'hybrids'?" Will gestured at Optimus and Ironhide.

"I did not refer to them as just 'hybrids', I referred to them as Ancilla Hybrids," it corrected.

"Guardian, right? Why call them that?" Will asked again, shortening the orb's name as it was much too long to constantly repeat.

Guardian twitched slightly at the name, "they are similar to an Ancilla but there is something much more different about them." Guardian hovered in front of Optimus' chest, "something here. It is as if they are like a living organism. However, the idea is preposterous as nothing akin was ever discovered by my makers." Guardian floated away as if dismissing the idea, before it addressed Optimus.

"Who are your makers?"

Will looked up at Optimus and found that the Prime wasn't that insulted by Guardian's conviction.

"It was the All Spark that gave us life," Optimus said calmly and simply.

"This is most interesting, which part of the universe do you come from? Perhaps that is why my makes never encountered you," Guardian paused for a second. Before anyone could answer he continued, "but, that would mean your kind was never was never catalogued and you would not exist, unless you came from outside the range of the Halo Array. Even that reached beyond where we had travelled…"

"The what Array?" Will was getting more confused by the second.

Guardian didn't say anything for a second, but when it did it appeared to have had an idea.

"This is not good," Guardian sounded doubtful. "I must find the Reclaimer, she has something."

Without another word Guardian whizzed off in what they all knew was the direction of Ratchet's Med Bay. Will cast a concerned glance up to the Autobots and found that both had similar look on their faces.

"Ratchet doesn't like visitors does he?" Will asked, somewhat hopeful that the answer would be yes.

"No," Ironhide mummed. "He hates them."

"Then let us hurry," Optimus rumbled before the three of them ran all the way to Ratchets Med Bay. Will yelled out orders for everyone and as well as telling them to expect another arrival.

~/~

**Noble Six**

Six woke up for the second time that day in pain. She didn't move as she discovered that she was no longer wearing her helmet. She could hear talking, but couldn't quite make it out what was being said. Her vision was blurred and was making it difficult to see anything.

Vibrations across the surface she was lying on brought her out of her internal log. Six closed her eyes, remained very still and kept her breathing steady as if she were still unconscious. When she thought the cause of the vibrations was near her, she opened her eyes and grabbed the arm of someone who was knelt next to her.

A short yelp came from the person, which was followed by a flustered, "woah! Hold on! Hold on! You need to remain still!"

Six narrowed her eyes and focused them on the brown haired woman kneeling next to her. She eyed the catheter in the woman's gloved hand and then the uniform, which had familiar letters stitched into it. When she thought about it, information came flooding back and she relaxed a little; the woman was with 'NEST'. She would comply; for the moment.

When Six let go of the woman's hand she gave a thankful look, "the name's Catherine Jones, but everyone just calls me 'Legs'. It's 'cause I'm so tall and mostly legs, but that what makes tall people tall really. So…what about you?"

Six smirked at the nervous woman, "Six or Spartan, take your pick."

"Those aren't names," Catherine said, frowning. "You've gotta have a real one."

"Spartan-Bee-Three-One-Two," Six said seriously.

Catherine sighed, "maybe the Major will get it out of you. I'm going to need to sedate you," she held up the catheter, "so we can fix you."

Six gave the catheter a dubious look; she doubted its contents would be able to knock her out. Catherine noticed the look raised a brow at Six.

"What's wrong?"

Six lent forwards and reached for the black case on her leg. As she did so Catherine held up her gloved hands –one still holding the catheter- and attempted to push her back down with one hand. It was a futile attempt as Six was a Spartan.

"You need to lie still," she protested. "Ratchet will blow a…tailpipe? No that's not it…. gasket, that's it. I'm still getting used to the Autobot's, have you met any aliens?"

"Many." Six pulled out a small metal case.

"Really? What're they like?" She eyed the case curiously.

Six handed her the case and replied bluntly, "too busy killing them to find out."

Catherine's eyes widened as she took the case and opened it. Before she could ask what the contents was Six told her.

"Polypseudomorphine, the amber one will knock me out for a few hours, use that," Six explained, lying back down.

"Oh," Catherine murmured as she closed the case and moved away.

A few moments later she came back and tried to examine the wound on Six's abdomen. She frowned a bit and looked back at Six.

"I guess knocking you out will be easier after Ratchet gets you out of your armor. Where do you feel pain?" She asked.

"Not there," Six indicated to the right side of her abdomen where the large burn was. "But here," she pointed to the gashes on her face. "Here," she pointed to her leg. "Here," She circled her over her chest. "And here," she tried to indicate to the back of her ribs.

"Well, I'll clean up what I can," Catherine nodded before she proceeded to clean up the gashes on Six's face without a word. Six inwardly snorted at the fact that the woman was scared of her because she killed aliens; if only she knew.

Just as Catherine finished up stitching up the gashes –after applying local anaesthetic- the orb came bursting through the large door with two robots and human hot on its tail.

With two clanging thuds the one named Ratchet turned around, not looking very happy. A large wrench was clutched in his tight grip.

"I believe I mentioned that I was to be left alone," he growled.

"I'm sorry old friend, but Guardian's Approach insisted on seeing the human," Optimus rumbled sincerely.

Ratchet eyed the orb with irritation, "If he doesn't leave, there _won't_ be a human to see."

"You're overreacting," Six growled, her eyes narrowed at Ratchet.

He snorted and gave her no further attention. Instead he turned on Guardian's Approach, "whatever you want from her can wait. She's my patient."

"This does not concern you, _Hybrid,"_ Guardian snarled in a degrading tone. "The Reclaimer took something."

Six looked down to the object Guardian was talking about and sighed. Leaning forwards she pulled it off her leg –ignoring Catherine's protests- and before Ratchet could snap back a comment, she held it up to Guardian.

"This?"

If orb's could smile, Six was sure Guardian would have. A blue light then stretched from his eye piece and curled around the object.

"My thanks Reclaimer." Was all Guardian said before leaving room and everyone in it confused.

The big red robot looked down at Six and asked, "what was the device you gave Guardian?"

Six shrugged, "something the..." _what was their name?_ "…Forerunners created?"

"This race is not familiar to you?" he asked.

"No."

"So you really are human," it was more of a statement than a question from the soldier who was sat on Ironhide's shoulder.

She eyed them both wearily, "Yes."

His brows knitted together in confusion, but before he could say more Ratchet ushered them all out the room.

When they'd all left Ratchet came over to her with three metal tools. They were all chunky around the middle, but at each end they were a different thin shape. She assumed that he'd somehow managed to get the measurements from her armor, as Dot didn't carry that kind of information. He placed the tools down gently by Catherine and returned to his work bench.

"Get her out of the armor and get her prepared." Being all he said.

"Right," Catherine mumbled. "Hopefully this won't take long…"

The process didn't take as long as Six thought, as Catherine managed to steadily work her way down the armor. Each piece came off Six with relative ease. It seemed Ratchet was competent enough to manage to build the tools to the exact size, a feat which made Six suspicious.

When all the pieces had been removed –which only took a few minutes- Catherine could just about push them into a neat pile that was out of the way.

Of course the whole thing was done in silence.

"Urmmm, Ratchet?" the yellow robot turned around at the sound of his name.

"What?" He grumbled.

Catherine swallowed, "I think you can scan her now."

Ratchet said nothing as he acted on the woman's words. A faint blue yellow light shot from him to Six before it was gone after a few seconds. The light seemed to bring a small tingling sensation with it that left Six scowling in suspicion.

"Bruised ribs at the back, some internal bleeding, numerous burns that appear to have been caused by….plasma? And a small crack in the right tibia," Ratchet listed before something else seemed to get his attention. His face snapped up and he looked right at her.

"What did you do to yourself?"

"It's called war," Six sneered.

"I'm not talking about the wounds," he growled. "What did you do to your body?!"

Realisation struck her and Six gave a low chuckle, "oh that? It's classified."

"Why you-"

"Urmm, excuse me? Ratchet?" Catherine cut in nervously. "Maybe you should talk to the Major about this after we've fixed her?"

"Yes," he said steely, eyeing Six. "We'll be having words later."

"Don't kid yourself Doc," Six snarked while Ratchet walked away muttering things about dangerous modifications.

"I'm going to need you to remove the suit _carefully_ , please," Catherine said softly, tapping the thick black material. "I'll get the rest of the stuff while you do."

Six nodded in acknowledgement and while Catherine moved away to grab some items, she gently slipped herself out of her undersuit. It stuck a few times to some of the wounds she'd gathered over the hours of battling, but it did eventually come off with little pain. Six placed the undersuit next to her and on the cool metal, of which she was lying on.

"I'm sorry, but this is going to be a skeleton operation. It wouldn't be so bad if we were at the Human Med Bay, but they insisted on bringing you here," Catherine sighed as she propped up a small IV drip. There was a single bag of clear coloured liquid currently hanging from it.

Catherine pointed to a small silver bag, "do you know your blood type?"

Six pulled off her dog tag that hung around her neck and threw it at Catherine.

"So you're oh-negative? Good," she muttered to herself as she undid the bag and quickly pulled out a pouch of dark red blood. "I'm just going to-"

"Just do it." Six waved her along irritably, which made the woman hurry up.

When the drip was finally connected to her, Six began leaning back when Catherine stopped her again. Scowling at the woman she waited until a pillow was placed under her head, before she finally reclined back.

"Ratchet? I'm just going to sedate her," Catherine called over to the 'Bot. She then gently injected the substance Six had given her earlier. The Spartan in question watched as the clear liquid was injected into her blood stream. She found the sensation strange a first, as if water was running into her body, but it soon went away. It was a few moments later that Six found herself becoming more and more numb until she fell into unconsciousness for the third time that day.

 _I better not wake up in pain,_ _**again.** _


	6. Impossible

 

* * *

~/~

**Catherine, Two Hours Later**

Catherine was _exhausted_. She'd spent the past two hours tending to two patients, just because Ratchet didn't like lots of humans in his Med Bay. Hell, she didn't even know anything about the second one, as it wasn't even human, not even close. For one thing it had two hearts! Two! How was she supposed to deal with that?

 _The Doctor hits the Med Bay,_ Catherine inwardly chuckled

"At least it wasn't awake," she whispered to herself. If it had been awake she was sure that it would've been much more difficult to deal with its eight foot frame. One thing that did make dealing with the creature easier was that it had very few wounds to deal with, which meant that she didn't have to worry about blood. Although she hadn't dared use any pain killer on it, least it kill the creature. She hadn't dared ask Ratchet about it either as the Autobot seemed very agitated.

Catherine sighed and looked down at the dog tag that 'Six' had thrown at her. She didn't even want to begin to think about the extremely pale girl with no name, because that's what she was, a _girl_. Catherine had her own daughter that looked other than 'Six', and yet this girl seemed to full of hate towards anyone that wasn't human. What had made her like that?

Catherine sighed again before suddenly colliding with a hard metal surface.

"Owww…God damn it," she cursed as she looked up and almost recoiled in horror. "O-Optimus P-Prime? Oh my…I'm really sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going, 'cause I was think about the people we had today, and I needed to find Major Lennox to give him this." She held up the dog tag.

Optimus did a calming motion with his hands before crouching down to Catherine's level.

"Don't worry yourself. I was also lost in thought," he said lightly. "How are the new comers?"

"The alien one's fine, just out for the count. The girl that calls herself 'Six', 'Spartan' or 'Spartan Bee-Three-One-Two' was in worst shape, but thanks to Ratchet she's much better. Although, I think you should go see him. Something was really bothering him about her. Anyway, I should probably go, sorry for taking up your time," Catherine smiled, edging away.

Optimus gave a small smile, "thank you, Catherine."

 _Okay, time to get back on track. Wait how did he know my name?_ Catherine thought, confused. Looking down, she found that her name was on her uniform, _figures_. And with that the tall brunette hurried down the corridor away from the heavy footsteps of Optimus Prime.

She continued through corridors as she searched for the Major and all the while she tried not to think about the strange beings in Ratchet's Med Bay. It proved difficult as they were her patients and she _would_ constantly worry about them.

Catherine rounded another corner and kept going through the base for another ten minutes until she entered the rec room. There were a few soldiers in the room, but most were too busy playing cards or other things to notice her entrance. She scanned the room, hoping to find the Major or at least someone who might know where he was.

There were so many people for her to look over, all of them had similar haircuts or hairstyles to the Major and made it difficult to make him out from the back. The room was also much too loud for her to ask if he was in here and she didn't want to interrupt their down time; as it wasn't very often they got any.

Then, at the side of the room, she spotted someone. It wasn't the Major, but it was someone who she thought would probably know where he was.

It was Graham and he looked like he was in the middle of a really good game of cards.

Catherine nibbled her lip, she _really_ didn't want to interrupt him in the middle of a game. But, this was more important than a card game, so damn it she was going to so what she came to do. She sighed, wondering to herself why she was so nervous off the battlefield or when she wasn't doing what she was good at.

With her mind made up she strolled over to where the group of American and British soldiers were playing cards. They looked up as she came over, all smiling at her and not the least bit bothered that she was interrupting their game.

_You're just too nervous for your own good._

A chorus of "Legs!" came from a few of them while others bombarded her with other greetings.

"It's Legs!"

"Jonsey!"

"Someone call a medic?"

There were laughs all around and she gave a small smile before she greeted everyone at once. They offered her a place at the table or to simply sit and watch, but she put them down with a smile.

"Sorry guys," she held up the dog tag. "Duty calls."

They all eyed it keenly and Jack –a light haired America guy- was the first to speak up, "that from the alien at the crash?"

She shook her head, "no, it's from the girl that fainted out on the air strip. I think she lives in the armor, 'cause she's so pale. She's completely white, like an albino, only without the red eyes. She's stubborn too. Anyway, I'm not here to show you all her dog tag. I was wondering if you'd seen the Major, Graham."

The man in question looked up as the other's started chattering about the dog tag or something else entirely.

"I think _Lennox_ was out on the air strip talking to Optimus and the floating orb, called Guardian?" Graham said, a small smile on his face.

"That orb sent Ratchet crazy when it burst into his lab, although that wasn't the only thing," Catherine muttered. Maybe she'd catch the Major if she was quick, then again she did see Optimus a while ago…

Smiling she started to back away, "thanks,

Doing a one-eighty turn she dashed out the room and in the direction of the airstrip. Throughout the trip she couldn't help but threat about her two patients.

The strange alien with the split jaws scared her in a way that she'd never felt. It chilled her to a bone and made her feel nauseous at the pit of her stomach. She wasn't sure why though. It wasn't as if the Autobot's made her feel like that, although, the Decepticon's did. She'd never forget the first time she'd seen those hate filled red eyes. Her body shivered involuntarily at the memory. It didn't explain why there was something about this alien that set her on edge, perhaps it had been something Six had said? The girl seemed very anti-alien and she'd mentioned something about a war. But, despite what she'd heard Catherine had worked through it in order to do her job.

Then there was the girl. She'd been in such a bad shape that Catherine was fearful that she wouldn't survive. Of course it was mainly thanks to Ratchet that she survived as his information and superior techniques made the process much easier. However, due to the severity of the burns the girl would have to remain rested for at least a couple of days and even then the site of the burns would never be the same. Then there was the crack in her tibia, which had been swollen. They'd done as much as they could to secure it, but Catherine needed someone to put a cast on it. Before leaving she'd also managed to put the girl into a set of NEST clothes. They'd been a bit big in areas, but they'd been a better fit than the other's she'd had on hand.

Catherine almost sighed in frustration, but that was when she spotted the Major making his way into the hangar she'd just entered. Beside him was the familiar large black robot that she'd come to know was Ironhide. Truthfully the mech terrified her to an extent, she wasn't sure why. Maybe it was his trigger happy personality?

"Major Lennox?" Catherine called across the hanger. The yell caught the attention of the Major and his head snapped up and in her direction. The giant mech beside him merely tilted his head a bit to see who had called.

She ran over to them and as she came to a stop she quickly saluted him before speaking, "the patients are stable and recovering. This is the girl's dog tag."

She held up the tag and extended it out to him. The Major eyed it as he carefully took it out her hand and then proceeded to study it intently.

"Spartan Bee-three-one-two?" After a while he asked, "Doesn't she have a name?"

Catherine shook her head, "she wouldn't tell me it. I was hoping that you'd be able to use it to find out where she comes from."

The Major flipped over the dog tag and his eyes narrowed in confusion. He looked up at Catherine "Did she mention this 'UNSC'?"

"No, all I know is that there's something about her that really riled Ratchet," Catherine paused in thought. "She should be waking up soon, you could ask her, sir."

"Yeah," he looked up at Ironhide who appeared to read his mind.

"I'll Comm. Ratchet and tell him we're coming down," the large mech rumbled

~/~

**Six, Med Bay**

Six found herself waking up and was glad to find that she wasn't in pain. Blinking away her slightly blurred vision she noticed that she was clothed. Looking down she saw that she had on a simple navy top and trousers which hung loosely on her frame.

Six scanned the room as she quietly lifted herself up. The robot from before was stood in front of a large, metal desk and her armor was in a small pile next to him; her eyes narrowed at that. But, she noticed something else, her helmet wasn't in the pile. Feelings of horror and failure spiked through her and she only hoped that they had not discovered Dot.

"Demon," growled a voice that didn't sound that far away from her. Her head snapped around to face the source and a sneer instantly formed on her face.

 _Why did they save it? Do they not know the danger of even one hinge-head? It could call an entire fleet here!_ Six raged within her mind as she slowly got up. Her eyes focused on the dark skinned Elite who was positioned behind her on a separate table. She brought her legs up and coiled herself to jump forward and eliminate the threat she'd been taught to.

The Elite had little time to react as Six leapt off the table and wrapped her hands around its neck. She ignored any protests from her body as she moved against its wishes. The Elite struggled beneath her and attempted to push her off. However, she simply pinned its legs with her own and applied as much pressure as she could. While its attempts to push her off became slightly weaker it didn't stop her momentarily losing her grip and allowing it to call out.

"I told you not to-" the annoyed voice of the medical robot called out before stopping short. Six could hear its heavy foot falls as it ran over to them. Just as he reached them the large door to the room opened and Six cursed. It was the red one.

Pushing of hard from the Elite's body Six just about managed to avoid the grabbing hand of the robot. As her hands touched the cool metal Six continued into a roll and from her low crouch she swiftly glanced up at the beings occupying the room. Her mouth twitched as her freshly stitched wounds screamed at the movement.

The green one was the first to talk, "Why must you insist on this? Your body needs to recover!"

Narrowing her eyes Six was about to give him an answer when the Elite spoke over her.

"The Demon cannot help herself," its English was still unclear, but she understood it well enough to know that it was taunting her.

She remained silent as she usually did and waited for one of the robots to speak. She glanced between the two robots, wagering that the red one would speak and that he would attempt to diffuse the situation. He seemed like the _type_.

"While freedom is your right, I cannot condone senseless violence," the red one rumbled softly while Six suppressed a smirk at his predictability. He was simple enough for her to figure out. He was evidently the commander of the robots and because of his kindness it only made people trust him more. When she looked closer she could see something in its eyes, something that looked familiar…

Mentally shaking herself she flashed the red robot a sneer before replying to the ridiculous statement, "Talk to the hinge-head and his _friends_ about senseless violence. I agreed to comply with you, but only if you dispatched of the hinge-head."

The Elite in question said nothing as he sat there seemingly wondering where the conversation was going. At the same time both robots shared a look before the red one tried to speak to her again.

"We took this question to the intelligence in your armor, but it refused to give _anyone_ an answer. Perhaps you could shed some light on the situation?"

Six considered what he said for the moment. She wasn't completely sure what to say, because before she'd passed out Dot had mentioned that the date was two thousand and eight. If that was true, then she had likely travelled back in time as it was theorised that slipspace had the ability to do that if something went wrong. Her mind ventured back to the device she'd found on the ship –the one she'd then given to Guardian's Approach- and came to the conclusion that she'd travelled to the past.

Her fears about the discovering Dot had also come true, she was only glad that the AI refused to tell them anything. But, how long would that last? Surely these robotic beings could attempt to force their way through Dot's defences and gain access to her information. Six mentally berated herself, she should've decommissioned the AI when she'd had the chance, but instead she decided to bring it on a little adventure. Since when was she so sentimental?

Deciding they had waited long enough Six gave them a short, but informative answer, "War."

"We were unaware that humanity was at war with another race," the red robot said, its eyes hardening slightly as it thought about her words. "When did this start?"

Six could tell he was trying to figure out who was the victim and who was the assailant in what she'd mentioned. But, instead of directly asking he was trying to figure out how this war could possibly happen to a species that had yet to achieve space flight.

"The year two thousand, five hundred and twenty five," Six said simply, watching for their reactions. Both robots were good at hiding their reactions –the red one more than the green- but she still managed to see the confusion that befell their faces.

"You're from the future?" The red one asked with a tone of skepticism.

The green robot made a spluttering noise of dismissal before addressing the red one, "Optimus, you can't seriously believe her? She's evidently deluded because of her injuries, which I may add, she is still recovering from."

"The Demon speaks the truth, constructs," the Elite said begrudgingly. Both robots considered him for a moment before the one she now knew was named Optimus turned back to her.

"While it may not be common, perhaps she may not really be from the future as I originally thought," Optimus said to the green robot before turning to her. "Were you born on Earth?"

Despite knowing what he was getting at Six answered his question, "No. I was born on Charybdis Nine, which is a colony of _Earth_."

"Clearly deluded," the green robot snapped.

"I'd originally presumed that your part of humanity originated from another section of space, similar things have happened to our race," Optimus murmured. "What disturbs me is that you do not recognise us, but you are from the future."

"We're still going through a messy first contact," Six snapped, indicating to the Elite.

"Look," she growled. "I've never seen you're kind before, but you need to get rid of him," she nodded to the Elite. "His kind are dangerous, he could call a whole fleet here if you're not careful and if you don't kill him, I will."

Six leaned back a little, letting her warning and threat sink in. It still didn't sit well with her that these other aliens were on Earth. She didn't trust them, no race would help an outsider out of the goodness of their 'heart'. They had to be after something. It didn't make sense if they weren't.

Before Optimus could say anything the large door slid open and a black robot stepped into the room carrying a very windswept man in its hand. Six tensed as she recognised the robot that had pinned her to the floor before she'd passed out, the one they called 'Ironhide'. The man was the one who been trying to convince her to trust them, the 'Major'.

"I thought I told you to wait until later," the green robot snapped at the pair, both of whom merely shrugged at him.

"If we let you have your way we'd never see her," Ironhide rumbled as he set the Major onto the table Six has previously been lying on.

"Besides, she looks fine," the Major added, a small smile making its way onto his face as the green robot rolled its eyes.

"She is nowhere near fine!" The green robot growled. "Surely the human medic mentioned this to you?"

The Major and Ironhide looked slightly puzzled while Optimus nodded his head in understanding.

"That is one of the reasons why I'm here, old friend. I encountered Catherine in the corridor and she mentioned that something about 'Six' was bothering you," Optimus said, casting a small glance at the green robot.

"It's unnatural and unnecessarily dangerous!" The green robot growled.

"You're overreacting," Six snapped before the green robot could say anymore. "We've all had to make sacrifices."

She thought back to Noble team. They'd all sacrificed so much for Reach, but in the end it had still fallen to the might of the covenant. She hoped that whatever she'd given to Captain Keys was worth it all.

She thought about them all: _Jorge_ , Kat, Carter, Emile. She was so sure she could've done something to stop them from dying.

Why was she the one to survive? Why did Jorge detonate the slipspace bomb instead of allowing her to do it? He was a Spartan-Two and would've been much more proficient on the battlefield than her. _Jorge…_ she mentally sighed before she could continue that trail of thought, deciding instead to move onto the next dead member of Noble team.

Why had Kat been the one to be shot? How had she not noticed that there was a Phantom overhead, or that Kat's shields were down?

Why had she been chosen to take the package? If she hadn't Carter wouldn't have had to sacrifice himself for her and Emile.

Why hadn't she been able to warn Emile about the Phantom? He could've easily shot it down and then they both would've been able to live to fight another day.

' _Why? Why? Why?' Look at yourself! Since when did you become so_ _ **soft!**_ _You're a soldier!_ Six mentally berated herself.

"What is it Ratchet?" The Major asked, glancing between the green robot -now known as Ratchet- and her.

"This 'Spartan' has had augmentations done to her body, all can be damaging if they're not accepted. I'll discuss them in detail with you later," Ratchet rumbled. The others nodded in agreement before silence lapsed into the room.

"When Ratchet clears you to leave the med bay-" The Major began, but Six interrupted him.

"I don't need his permission to leave, I'm fine now. I need to work on getting back."

Ratchet snorted, "You will do no such thing, your body is still suffering from extreme exhaustion and its wounds."

Six gave the robot a weary glance; who was he to tell her what to do? It wasn't as if she was going to start wrestling aliens to the floor. Then there was the fact that she wasn't going to stay in the same room as the hinge-head for longer than necessary. If they weren't going to kill it then she'd just stay away from it. _Simple_.

"I _am_ going up to the ship -send someone to keep an eye on me if you want- and I'll need my armor. But, I will not stay here with the hinge-head," she stated, her tone suggesting she wouldn't compromise. "I agreed to come with you. I needed your help, but now that I'm fixed up my priority is returning home."

The Major glanced from Ratchet and then to Optimus before his eyes made their way to her. He sighed before speaking, "I can't agree right now, letting you run around could put everyone at this base in danger. We don't know that much about you and, well, for all we know you could be somehow working for the enemy."

Six's ears perked up, they were at war with someone that wasn't human? She looked over the robots and spotted a face shaped emblem on them. _Different factions?_ Had the humans of this time somehow got caught up in the war of another species?

"I assure you, I'd never work with _aliens_ ," Six sneered.

"Your story's just too outlandish for us to believe right off the bat," he explained. "When we've fully questioned you and your companions, then we'll know."

"You may as well start now," Six suggested. If they wouldn't let her do anything without some information on her, she would have to divulge some. "You already know where I come from and _when_ , so ask away."

"Alright," the Major agreed as he thought of a question. "What's your name?"

Six quirked a brow at him, she knew what he wanted, but her name was just a number now. "Spartan-Be-Three-One-Two or Six."

He frowned, "Your real name?"

When she didn't answer he sighed and mentally vowed to find out later. "How old are you? If you don't mind me asking."

"I'm twenty-one."

Both his eyes widened and he asked in surprised, "you're only twenty-one? I thought you were older."

Six shook her head, "Most Spartan-Threes are around my age, I'm one of the youngest though."

"You mentioned that before and it's on your dog tag, what exactly is a Spartan?"

"A Spartan is basically a super-soldier created to fight for humanity. As the robot has told you I've had augmentations done to me, all Spartans have them." Six explained before quickly adding, "Most of the information on us is heavily classified, so I can't tell you much."

"There're more of you?!" Ratchet boomed, clearly unhappy about the prospect.

Six nodded.

"Are there many of you then? Spartan-Threes I mean," the Major asked as if interested.

Six tensed her jaw, "There were a lot of us, but most of us were wiped out after two missions and the attack on Reach. I'm probably one of the last."

"Ah, sorry," the Major said embarrassed, his steely eyes connected with hers and she saw understanding. "If it's any consolation I know how it feels, most of us here do."

She waved him off, "It's fine. As soldiers it's our duty to protect humanity, whatever the cost."

Some of them looked slightly taken aback by her words, but they said nothing. The Major looked like he wanted to say something and he almost did. However, no sound left him and he shook his head before moving on to another question.

"Have you ever met anyone like the Autobots?"

Six eyed the robots before her, she was sure she'd remember meeting something that large and _alien_. The Covenant certainly hadn't employed the use of giant robots, someone in the UNSC would've noticed and they all would've been warned.

"No."

"Not even a talking car or something?" He checked.

She sighed, "the closest we've got to them are AI and even they don't have their own physical bodies."

"So no robots," he agreed. "You wouldn't happen to have anything to prove your story?"

"I should have something in my armor; I just need a projector or something like that."

"We won't do it right now, I need to get on the horn to the General ; he'll want to be present for it." he explained, "we'll probably be round after you've had a cast put on-"

Six chuckled, "that won't be necessary."

"I'll be the judge of that," Ratchet growled. "If you have the cast I'll be willing to let you out of here in a few hours."

 _He's good_ , Six thought to herself. _He knows I don't want to be around the hinge-head and this way he gets me put in a damn cast._

"Fine, the sooner I get out of here the better."

Ratchet gave a smug smile before walking over to her and extending his hand. She glanced at the hand know that he expected her to walk onto, _if I have to._ Without a word she climbed onto the hand and stood steady as he moved around and placed her on the table she'd previously been on.

When she hopped off his hand he returned to his original position next to Optimus. The big robot had said little during the Major's questioning and Six was curious what his opinion on the whole situation was. Well, she wasn't that curious. He was an _alien_ after all. But, she couldn't help but be reminded about the AI they had back home. These robots seemed so similar, only they had bodies and weren't created by humans.

Frowning, she was brought out of her thoughts when the Major addressed the Elite.

"You up to answering some questions?" he asked with a small smile. Clearly the Major was interested in meeting another species, despite her warnings about how dangerous the Elite was.

"Of course human," the Elite rumbled. "Perhaps you will find I'm not as bloodthirsty as the Demon makes me out to be."

"Right," the Major shifted uncomfortably. "What's your name and…species…?"

The Elite did its own equivalent of a smile, "I, human, am Roh 'Rithinee, a noble Sangheili warrior from the planet Sanghelious and a Field Marshal of the Covenant."

"What is this Covenant?"

"The Covenant is a hegemony made up of multiple species united in worship towards the Forerunners," Roh summarised.

 _Conveniently leaves out the reason why they're wiping out humanity is because of their 'religion',_ Six scoffed inwardly.

"What has this got to do with a war on humanity," the Major asked, gesturing to Six.

Roh gave Six a side-ways glance –to which he received a smug smile- and began to tenderly explain, "after we encountered the humans twenty-seven years ago…they were declared by the Hierarchs a-as an affront to…the Gods and were to be…eliminated…"

A heavy silence hung in the room. Roh hung his head in shame while the Major had a look of shock and disbelief on his face. Six found the robots much harder to read, but she could tell that they weren't happy; especially so when the one named Ironhide spoke up.

"You decided to wipe out an entire species because of your _religion_ ," he growled.

~/~

**Roh**

As he stumbled over his words Roh could see the Demon giving him a smug look out of the corner of his eye. She knew he was in trouble, but what could he do? He'd been a tool of the Hierarchs –all of the Covenant were- and had never had reason to question them. How was he going to make them understand how important the Forerunners where to the Covenant? It wouldn't lessen the crime that they had committed because it was just wrong; he knew that _now_.

When he finished the disjointed explanation there was silence. The human looked shocked among other things while the constructs just seemed plain angry; especially the red one. The red one –Optimus was apparently his name- was the angriest, not because of any obvious change of his expression. It was in fact because of the small narrowing of the eyes and the thinning of the mouth that projected the red ones anger at such intensity that Roh could _feel_ the anger rolling off of him.

The other two were more obvious with their anger. The black one had a similar expression to the red one, only it was more prominent and terrifying by the battle scarred face and intense blue eyes. At his sides his large hands were curled into large fists that Roh was sure had seen much use. Then there was the medic; who was already scary in his own way because of the permanent frown on his face. Add an oversized tool -which Roh had seen on human planets- to his large hands and you had one scary medic.

_It doesn't help that the construct is supposed to be my_ _medic_ _. It would've been better if they'd left me to die, at least then I would still have some honor._

"You decided to wipe out an entire species because of your _religion_ ," snapped Roh out of his inner dilemma and he found the black construct preparing to step forward when the red one stopped him. He glanced up to the red one and Roh watched with interest as he spoke, "Optimus-"

Optimus moved his hand onto the black constructs shoulder before speaking in a voice of calm rage, "For what reason would you to wage such a war? The humans may be a violent race, but they are young and as we've learned it is possible to coexist with them."

Roh swallowed. He then took a deep breath before looking into the deep blue eyes of Optimus, "I'm unsure why the Hierarchs decided to wage a war against humanity. However, I do have an idea."

"Go on," Optimus prompted, his voice still the same tone.

"I think the Hierarchs were trying to cover something up. As for what that would be I don't know, but the Oracle clearly respects the Demon and that must have something to do with it."

There was silence as Optimus lent towards Roh. The giant robot made no move to say anything as he appeared to be thinking and unable to help himself Roh spoke again.

"I was told that when we discovered the Humans, things in the Covenant were steadily declining. Perhaps that is another reason as to why war was declared on the Humans." Roh was babbling now. He snorted inwardly at himself; look at him now, what a Field Marshal he was if all it took was an oversized robot to unnerve him. To tell the truth though, Roh had always drawn strength from his belief in the Great Journey. But now that that was a lie where was he supposed to get his strength from? What was he supposed to fight for?

"While I cannot Judge the actions of an event that may not be true," as Optimus spoke, Roh could feel the weight to his words. "Know that if it is true and you show any such hostility towards our Human comrades, we will not hesitate in our actions to ensure their safety. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal, construct."

With the hard look not leaving him, Optimus turned to the dark-haired Human in front of Roh, "Major Lennox, I suggest keeping the nature of this 'conflict' from your men. However, it is ultimately your choice, you know your men best."

Said Human grimaced, "As much as I don't want to, it's probably for the best. Things around here'll be tense enough without this."

Roh let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. He'd been unsure what action the construct would take as he'd never encountered anything like them. Not even the Humans employed anything like them throughout the war, which explained the Demon's reluctance to trust them.

Optimus moved away from Roh as he and his comrades began discussing things amongst themselves. On the metal bench next to him the medic construct was attending the Demon and attempting to check her wounds. Roh could hear the frustration grow in the constructs voice as she continued to wave him off. Although, after a short time and with a large smirk on her face the Demon allowed him to go over her wounds.

Taking advantage of the few moments of reprieve Roh mulled over his own situation. He was still slightly confused about everything that had happened. It appeared that they had not landed where either he or the Demon wanted. He didn't know exactly where they were. But, given that there were Humans working with another species and the Demon's nature towards them, they were somewhere completely unknown. Or, that was what he'd thought to begin with, until they mentioned time-travel. The idea was completely ludicrous to Roh, but something in him couldn't help but think that it was the answer.

_It is even possible? If we're indeed back in time then everything changes, the war on Humanity can be stopped before it even begins. But something isn't right, these…constructs, they are nowhere to be seen in our time. What happens to them? Are they killed off by this war they keep hinting at? What about Humanity? Would they not have been much different in the future when they met the Covenant? I was aware that we were their First Contact. This doesn't make sense!_

_By the Forerunners, where are we?!_

Frustration brushed over Roh at his musing, followed by trepidation. He wasn't overly worried about being back in time, it was the fact that what he knew about this place so far did not match up with his knowledge in the future. Then there was the fact that if he and the Demon were indeed stuck here then that would mean he was stuck with Humans, on a _Human_ world.

_Forerunners, save me. I will surely go mad._

"Sorry about that," Roh looked up at the noise. It was the Human Major and he still looked mildly upset about Roh's revelation from the future. "Do you mind if we continue?"

Roh sent the Human a soft gaze; if he was stuck here he may as well try and get along with the natives. "That is up to you Human. No doubt what I just told you will take a while to come to terms with, even if you are unsure if what we say is true. However, I'm happy to continue."

"You're right about that," the Human forced a chuckle, his body still tense. "So I guess we'll continue. How about your age?"

Roh thought for a moment.

"In Human years I would be about…. _ffirty,_ " Roh said, struggling with the word at the end.

The Major's brows rose a little, "So you were only a kid when this 'war' started?"

Roh nodded and watched as the Humans eyes travelled to the Demon, realising that she hadn't even been born. Roh realised too and found that it explained a lot about the Demon's bitterness.

Turning back to Roh he asked another question, "Have _you_ encountered anything like the Autobots?"

Not needing to look at the constructs in question Roh gave a similar answer to the Demon's. The Human nodded and ran his hand through his hair in frustration. Clearly he felt out of his depth when it came to Roh and the Demon, but there was something else that bothered him. Frowning Roh decided it would be best to voice his musings.

"I'm curious, Human, you've ask both me and the Demon about encounters with these constructs. Who is it that we may have been in contact with?"

"I think it'll be best for Optimus to explain that," the Major said, withdrawing his hand from his hair and gesturing towards the large red construct.

"The enemy Major Lennox refers to are the Decepticons," Optimus began grabbing the attention of both Roh and the Demon. Bringing a large finger up to the side of his face, Optimus pressed something and his eyes then proceeded to project a sophisticated 3D image that encompassed the entire room. The floor seemed to breakaway where anyone wasn't standing and in its place dark and fiery chasms of metal appeared while metal structures curled up from multiple places. The sounds of explosions were accompanied by different bursts of light all over the room.

"We were once a peaceful race of mechanical robotic beings, until we were betrayed by Megatron, leader of the Decepticons. All who defied them were destroyed," as if to prove a point a large spear shot across the room and impaled a construct. It body was pinned to the floor and instantly went limp. As everyone looked in the direction it came from they saw a large construct with a sharp rage filled face, cheering at his kill. Strange symbols decorated the metal on the side of his face as he turned to the side and with him the view changed to a large battle field. As the battles rage on around them Optimus continued to explain, "Then came the war between the Autobots who fought for freedom and the Decepticons who dreamt of tyranny. Overmatched and outnumbered, our defeat was all but certain. But as our war raged across the planet, the planet itself was eventually consumed and the Allspark was lost to the stars."

Bodies continued to fall on, off and around the metal honeycomb structure that stretched over the chasms. Optimus did not stop in his explanation as the scene around them changed again, only this time it was a giant metallic cube with millions of symbols engraved all over it. "Megatron chased the Allspark to Earth, but crash-landed before he could retrieve the cube."

Again the scene changed and before them, frozen in ice, was the robot they had seen before. A permanent snarl was on his face as his claw like hands were tensed in different positions. "Until last year Megatron remained frozen and unable to reach the Cube. However, when news of the cube reached his Decepticons and us, they stumbled upon his whereabouts and managed to release him."

The scene shifted to a Human city that looked like the aftermath of an assault. Debris and burning vehicles lined the streets as two large, but familiar constructs battled at a crossroads.

Out of the corner of his eye Roh saw the Demon tense and her lips twitch up into a small sneer. But before he could mull over her reaction a young human sprang into view clutching a miniaturised version of the cube they had seen before.

"A destructive battle ensured and in order to prevent Megatron from gaining the Allspark I requested that our young ally, Sam Witwickey, place the cube into my chest." Optimus' voice was heavy and full of regret and Roh could only wonder how important this Allspark was.

The illusion before them continued as Optimus and Megatron grappled with each other. Ignoring the clash of metal on metal the young Human boy rand forwards with the cube in his hands. As he did Megatron kicked Optimus into a building, who then landed near Sam. Stumbling the boy almost fell over as Megatron came running up behind him only to be knocked over by a well-placed swipe to the legs from Optimus –who was still on the floor.

Struggling to stand Megatron clawed at the boy as Optimus attempted to get to his feet, the wounds they'd inflicted on each other making the movements much more difficult. Megatron growled and snarled at the boy, who attempted to crawl away, while Optimus pleaded with him to put the cube in his chest.

The words appeared to make the boy realise something as he bravely stood up and held the cube up to Megatron's chest. With a yell torn from his very being Optimus called out to the boy, but they fell on deaf ears as Sam continued to push the cube up at Megatron's chest.

"Despite my instructions, Sam placed the Allspark into Megatron's chest, both ending his life and destroying the cube. I am forever in his debt," Optimus' voice was sad, but content at the same time. Roh looked up at the construct that had been narrating the illusion before them and saw the way he looked at Megatron. The look wasn't completely full of hate. There was something else, something that reminded Roh of the way he'd looked at his hard-headed brother.

Turning back to the projection before him, Roh watched in awe as hot orange and white light projected from the cube and slammed into Megatron's dark metal chest. A strange noise was emitted and sparks flew as the boy held steady, despite the large and dangerous metal being above him. As quickly as it had begun the bottom section of the cube turned into the hot orange light and slammed up into Megatron's chest.

Roh's awe turned to shock as the large being reared back onto his legs, letting out choked gasps before pitching forwards towards the boy. His hands clutched at his chest as the light from the cube remained. With one last gasp Megatron fell backwards and landed on his back right next to Sam. Dead.

"Since then there has been little Decepticon activity, it is something that worries us as Megatron's second in command –Starscream- managed to flee the battle."

Slowly the floor beneath them returned to normal and a sober look was on almost everyone's faces. Optimus still had a look of regret on his face while Roh noticed that the Demon appeared angry. Roh himself was left feeling a sense of shock. He wasn't sure how to react to what he'd seen. It wasn't as bad as what he'd seen during his time with the Covenant, but that was what made it difficult to say anything.

"I want to help."

The words surprised everyone in the room as they were ground out of the Demon's mouth. Roh's eyes widened a bit, hadn't she been adamant about going home not a few moments ago?

"What?" the Major asked, just as confused as everyone else in the room.

"I want to help kick these bastards off Earth. Unless you have a slip-space drive –or something similar- lying around that I can use to get back," the Demon snapped.

Roh's head snapped up in disbelief, he was on _Earth_? The home of the Humans? The planet that the entire Covenant was slowly, but surely, making its way towards? No wonder the Demon was twitchy. Knowing the now wasn't the time to think about the implications of this information, Roh filled it away for later and continued to watch the spectacle before him.

"Why do you suddenly want to help us?" the Major quizzed, his brows furrowed together as he tried to wrap his head around the Demons sudden change. Even Roh was wondering what strange thoughts were running through the Demons twisted mind.


	7. Reclaimer's Messenger

 

* * *

~/~

**Noble Six**

As the projection disappeared Six found herself rather enraged.

These ' _Decepticons_ ' had attacked Earth. They'd attacked the planet she'd sworn to protect since she'd joined the Spartan program. When the projection had shown the street on Earth she'd began thinking about how she was going to get back to the fight. As she thought she'd realised that she didn't have the means to get back. If they were going to recreate the situation that had brought them here they would need a slip-space engine or something similar. For a split-second she'd felt helplessness, but as she saw an alien battle rage through the streets on Earth she realised that she could be of use here. She could help kick these _'Decepticons'_ off Earth while she searched for a way home.

When all thoughts of getting home stopped all she was left with was rage. She would kick them off this planet and they would never return. Thus as soon as Optimus had finished talking she'd spoken up.

"I want to help," she growled, still angry as she clenched her fists. _Traitor,_ her mind whispered, but she ignored it.

"What?" The Major looked confused at her outburst.

"I want to help kick these bastards off Earth. Unless you have a slip-space drive –or something similar- lying around that I can use to get back," she snapped, knowing they wouldn't have such a thing. _Such a traitor._

"Why do you suddenly want to help us?" the Major quizzed, his brows furrowed together as he appeared to be trying to wrap his head around her sudden change.

Taking a deep breath she unclenched her hands and tried to calmly explain, "In order for me to return I need a slip-space drive or something very similar. I doubt any of you have one lying around and even if we can figure out how to build one, it would take time."

She took another breath as images of Reach and the ones she'd just seen flashed through her mind, "so if I'm going to be here a while, why waste a perfectly good asset? I've got years of training and experience fighting against a technologically superior enemy and," she pinned the Major with an intense stare. "Protecting Earth and Humanity is what I've always done."

She gave him a moment for that to sink in before speaking again, "So what'd you say?"

Six watched as the Major seemed to consider what she'd just said. The robots in the room sometimes stole glances at each other as if they were having an internal conversation. The green robot next to her spared her a glance a couple of times and she knew why. He was _concerned_ about her wounds. The idea was preposterous to her, but she knew he wasn't pretending because she knew how serious her wounds were. The plasma burns didn't hurt, but it was because they didn't hurt that he was concerned. Her leg hurt a little, but it was so inconsequential she couldn't believe it had a _crack_ in it, even if it was a small one. Then there were the other cuts and bruises that had her body stinging and aching all over.

Of course, had she still been where she belonged, her wounds wouldn't have stopped her from fighting.

"If everything checks out then we'll see about you joining," the Major finally said. "Ultimately it's up to General Morshower."

"That's all I ask, Major." _Traitor._ Six ignored her mind's accusations and instead thought about who these people were. She knew their name was 'NEST', but that was it. If she really was going to with them then she wanted to know who they were."Although, I have a couple of questions before I agree to anything."

"Ah, just call me Lennox, or Will," he rubbed the side of his neck. "What do you want to know?"

"What exactly is this organisation? You're obviously military, but who funds you and who do you work for?"

"NEST stands for the 'Non-biological Extra-terrestrial Species Treaty'. We're a classified strike team with American origins. We're the best defence against the Decepticon's and we receive our orders from the Pentagon; General Morshower, the US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Although, despite our American origins we do have soldiers from other countries. We were formed just under a year ago after the battle of Mission city." The Major explained with pride.

Six nodded, she was satisfied with the answer. If she could trust what he said then it appeared that they were official. Only time would tell if what he'd told her was true. The Major seemed glad that she'd accepted his explanation as his stature relaxed a little.

Six wondered what they're going to do next. She waged that they'd probably go off to discuss her and the Elite and then set up a meeting with General Morshower. That left her with a few hours to find something to keep her mind preoccupied least it wonder to all the 'ifs' and 'buts' about the pervious forty-eight hours. She didn't want to go there just yet. A lot had happen and she could barely wrap her mind around it all. But, right now she was putting on a brave face and making the best of a situation that she didn't want to be in.

She didn't want to be in another time where Humanity was threatened by giant machines. She didn't want to be in a place where Humanity could barely push those beings off the planet. She wanted to be back where she belonged, fighting right to the end. But, with no other choice she'd stay and make sure that these Decepticons were wiped off the face of Earth.

"Is there anything you want to tell us about the training you've received?" Lennox asked, drawing her from her thoughts. "We know you've a Lieutenant for this UNSC…"

"Full Lieutenant for the United Nations Space Command's Navy," Six confirmed before thinking about what she's going to say about her training.

"As for my training," she began, coming to her decision. "I've got over three years of the best training the UNSC has to offer and more than three years of active duty during wartime."

Six was unaffected by the lie she told them as she didn't want to –and couldn't- explain what training she really received from the age of seven.

"So you joined when you were sixteen? I'm guessing that the three years of training was because of what you had done to you?"

Six nodded in agreement, waiting for the next question.

"You're okay with working with the Autobots?" He raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

"I'll find a way to adapt."

"Optimus?" He looked up at the robot in question, "You want to ask her anything?"

Optimus' brilliant blue eyes landed on her before he spoke, "I only ask that you reserve hostilities towards the Decepticons and not my comrades."

She smirked at that. "Of course."

"I think someone will be up soon to put a cast on your leg," Lennox explained. "Ratchet will keep you updated with what's going on and it'll be two hours or so before we'll talk to you again. Do you need anything?"

"My armor, I'll prepare a video." She then asked, "Where's Guardian?"

"He was out on the air strip, but then he suddenly whizzed off about an hour ago. We tried to follow, but we lost him. I'm not sure where he went," Lennox frowned, annoyed with himself. "Ratchet has your armor."

Six looked at the robot in question and with a grumble he picked up her helmet and passed it to her. Sneering at the robot as she could only imagine what he'd been doing to her armor. After receiving a disapproving stare in response her thoughts wondered to Guardian.

**~/~**

**Orbit Above Earth, Soundwave, 3 Hours Earlier**

" **Tracking anomaly descent. Anomaly lost. Sending last know co-ordinates."**

" **Snapjaw and Team Gears reporting in, co-ordinates received. Mission details?"**

" **Observation."**

" **Got'cha Soundwave, we'll kept it quiet. Give us a few hours and we'll find whatever it was that you lost. Snapjaw, out."**

**~/~**

**Guardian's Approach, One Hour Earlier**

Five-Three-Seven wasn't happy. Everything had gone wrong so quickly. He had the Reclaimer, but instead of being at Requiem where he was supposed to be, he was stuck somewhere completely different. He was on Erde-Tryene –or Earth as they called it now- in another time if the positioning he'd calculated was correct. However, that wasn't even the half of it. His thoughts travelled to the device the Reclaimer had found, the device which was the cause of all this.

He didn't know how it had gotten aboard the ship, but he had a feeling that it was somehow _her_ doing. The device was part of a set of three known as Quirinus' Spear, which had been created in the most ancient times of the Forerunners. Although details on them were sketchy, it was said that they could manipulate the slip-space stream in a way that allowed travel to another plane of existence. But, to the modern Forerunner the device was nothing but a myth and because of this he knew very little on how it worked.

At the moment he didn't have time to think over it. Using the surveillance this primitive world had Five-Three-Seven was able to determine that there were three of the Ancilla Hybrids making their way towards the area where he'd cloaked the ship before its unfortunate crash. He was curious about these Ancilla Hybrids and had a feeling that these ones where different to the ones he'd already met.

However, his curiosity would only go so far. His duty was to get the Reclaimer to Requiem in one piece, and if these Ancilla Hybrids wanted to harm the Reclaimer he would take action.

Without a backwards look at the structure he was at, Five-Three-Seven sped off into the clouds and towards his curiosity.

Would his curiosity survive?

**~/~**

**Snapjaw's Last Transmission**

" **Soundwave, we found something. I'll send a visual."**

" **Received. What is the target's designation?"**

" **Says he's called Five-Three-Seven Guardian's Approach, Monitor of Outpost Zero-Seven or something, he wants to know if we want to harm 'The Reclaimer'. Keeps calling us Ancilla Hybrids."**

" **Question the target about 'The Reclaimer'."**

" **Gahh, it's a** _ **Human**_ **. Hold on, apparently this** _ **Human**_ **is special and we're not to harm** _ **her.**_ **It sent me a visual….."**

" **Snapjaw, proceed."**

" **Yeah, sorry… I can see why** _ **she's**_ **different. Sending the visual. Shall we target** _ **her**_ **next?"**

" **Affirmative, discover the target's location."**

" **He's refusing. Great, Gearstacker's pointing his blasters...-scrap he got taken down in a single shot! Soundwave, this is going to the pit. Blackwing's been taken down too, he's just shooting right at our fragging sparks!"**

" **Retreat."**

" **What the frag do you think I'm doing?! I'm dodging as much as I can-aghhh. Scap, he got my wing, sending one last visual and a set of co-ordinates."**

" **Information received."**

" **Warn all 'Cons off him, you need to get the** _ **Human.**_ **Snap-"**

**/Comm. unavailable/**

" **Decepticons, find 'The Reclaimer'. Laserbeak, establish contact with our Human Agents."**

**~/~**

**William Lennox**

The past three hours had shown a huge turn of events. First Six had wanted to kill them and the alien she'd arrived with. But now she was willing to leave him alone and even join NEST to work with more aliens. Will had a feeling that she was trying to come to terms with how she was going to get back to wherever she came from. He was inclined to believe that she came from the future, but it just seemed too far-fetched.

Will sighed in frustration as he continued to pace up and down the short distance in front of Ironhide. He wanted her to join NEST, but there was something at the back of his mind warning him that this could be a trap. It could be an elaborate ruse employed by the mostly silent Decepticons.

"Will?"

But she was Human! Ratchet had assured them of that.

"Will!"

Decepticons didn't use Humans, did they? But she seemed more like a machine than a Human…

And then there was the Sangheili, he didn't even want to start thinking about that…

"William!" A voice behind him roared, causing him to flinch in surprise.

Will stopped pacing and gave Ironhide a questioning look.

"What's wrong?" Ironhide rumbled, concerned.

Running a hand through his already ruffled hair, Will answered, "I don't know what to do with them Ironhide. My gut's telling me to trust them, but…"

"But?" the large mech coaxed.

"My head's telling me that what they're saying can't be possible, it shouldn't be possible." He sighed, "What do you think?"

"Listen to your gut," Ironhide replied without hesitation. "I would."

"You think what they said is true?"

"The Sangheili, if he was lying he wouldn't make up something like that," Ironhide explained. "It would only make us more cautious around him and then whatever it was the 'Cons sent him to do would be impossible. It's the Spartan I'm concerned about."

Will nodded, "I know what you mean. She almost seems like a machine, the way she talks…"

"Yes…I've never seen a fleshly act like that, I'm wagering it's not normal?"

"No, not even a war veteran would speak about his fellow soldiers like that." Will mulled over it in his mind.

" _As soldiers it's our duty to protect Humanity, whatever the cost."_

The words she'd spoken had sounded like they were drilled in, either by her or whoever had trained her.

_It's as if she thinks Humanity and soldiers are two separate things._

"The war they're fighting must be getting bad if their soldiers think like that," Will murmured.

A grim smile worked its way onto Ironhides face, "Yeah, we'll be able to see it when we all speak to Morshower. What did he say about _Six_ joining NEST?"

Will thought back to the slightly strained conversation he'd had with the General less than ten minutes ago. As much as he tried to explain the story in a less crazy way, it hadn't worked. The General had just seemed as skeptical as Will and even more so when he'd gotten around to explaining that there was a Human in the group. Although, things had looked up when he explained how well she'd attempted to fight off Ironhide and Ratchet. But it came crashing down again when he mentioned that they thought they were from a war torn future. After that the General had said he wanted to see her proof before he even considered her joining NEST. So he'd given Will an hour to have her, the Sangheili, Guardian and the Autobots ready for a video conference.

Coming back to the present Will replied to Ironhide's question, "He's not going to consider her joining until he speaks to them and see's the proof. We've got an hour."

"I've let the others know," Ironhide said after a few moments. "Ratchet isn't happy, but he never is…what about the strange orb? Guardian?"

"I-" Will was about to begin to explaining that he hadn't seen the crazy orb, when suddenly said orb appeared at the entrance to the hanger. A few of the people around the area tensed at its sudden appearance, but continued with what they were doing. The orb made its way over to Will and Ironhide and Will knew that if orbs could be smug, then this one surely way; he only wondered why. He had a feeling it was to do with the piece of metal it was carrying.

"Looking for me?" Guardian called happily.

Will frowned at it, "I thought we told you to stay on base."

"That would not have been possible," the light holding the piece of metal stretched out to Will, who then caught the metal when the light around it receded. "I hope they were not allies of yours."

Will eyed the piece of metal with wide eyes. It had obviously been ripped off something and was unmistakably a Decepticon emblem. He showed it to Ironhide and a huge grin broke out onto his face.

"I think we're going to get along just fine," he chuckled as if he was certain that Guardian and the others would join.

"Where'd you get this?" Will asked with a tone of curiosity. He closed his hands around the metal, which he noticed was still warm. Evidently the owner had not been dead long.

"I discovered that there were three of the Ancilla Hybrids making their way to the area where the _Liberator_ was before I managed to cloak it. Of course, to ensure the Reclamier's safety I went to contact them to discover if they meant her harm. It appears they did," Guardian explained. "Before I sent them an image of her they were not hostile. They became aggravated when they found out that she was Human and then began demanding I take them to her. I denied and then they forced me to deal with them."

"How did you..?" Will trailed off trying to figure out how something so small and apparently unarmed had managed to take down three Decepticons.

"Oh, all Monitors are outfitted with a standard laser weapon. Would you like a demonstration?"

Not wanting to go there, Will decided to just take Guardians word for it and politely declined. Ironhide on the other hand…

"Yeah, I'll have a demonstration" the large mech said with a large smile. "If it can kill a 'Con quickly then I want it, it'd be a great addition to my arsenal."

"Do you have a target in mind?" Guardian asked as it looked around the room.

"Hol-" Will began but Ironhide cut over him.

"I think there's a spare piece of metal that Ratchet isn't using…" Ironhide trailed off and a smirk appeared on his face. Will glanced between the two, slightly horrified, he didn't want to be around when Ratchet found out what they were doing. Maybe he should try and save them from the medic's wrath.

"Ironhide…" he began, but the large mech flashed him a grin, stopping any further protests.

_Ah well, if you can't beat them, join them,_ Will thought. Although he still didn't trust Guardian, but he guessed that if Six's story proved true it would be like having another Autobot around. He hoped.

"Excellent," Guardian positively beamed. With that the three moved out of the hanger and into another room, where Will and Ironhide spent the next forty-five minutes witnessing Guardian's laser destroy an innocent piece of metal, that just happened to belong to Ratchet. Despite the lack of trust towards Guardian, Will and Ironhide still enjoyed the company of the strange floating orb. During the time they watched the orb at work, others joined them as they were curious as to what all the noise was about.

**~/~**

**Noble Six**

Since Lennox had left Six had been going through recordings with Dot as they tried to find the best ones to show. She'd also –begrudgingly- shown Ratchet what Dot was stored in so that he could figure out a way to connect her to a screen. While he'd been doing that Catherine had appeared along with another human and a large trolley. With the help of Ratchet they'd been lifted up onto Six's metal platform and had proceeded to bandage and cast her leg.

Of course the cast had turned out to be bright pink.

Six scowled down at the pink thing that was now stuck on her leg for God knows how long. She only hoped it wouldn't be too long. _This is ridiculous, I'm a Spartan. My bones are hardly going to snap because of a small crack in them. I was designed to take punishment,_ Six growled to herself.

"It's not that bad," Catherine said softly, noticing Six's expression. The medic was still edgy around Six and so was the man she'd brought with her –Jorge. To begin with the name had initially startled her and had reminded her of Jorge. But, Six had quickly stamped those thoughts down. She didn't need to go there right now.

"It makes you seem less…scary?" Jorge offered as he packed away some of the stuff they'd been using.

"At least you're honest," Six smirked, remembering that her Jorge had been similar. _No, he wasn't your Jorge Six, never could've been,_ Six berated herself. Besides from the little time she'd spent with the two medics Six could tell that honesty was the only thing this Jorge had in common with her – _no, Noble's-_ Jorge.

Jorge chuckled –although it was nothing like her – _Noble's_ \- Jorge, "Catherine's just too nice to say that she finds you scary."

"I do not," Catherine protested, and then looked at Six. "Well, maybe a little."

"Some do find Spartans imposing," Six agreed. "You'll get used to it."

"You're staying?" Catherine asked. Her big blue eyes darted from Jorge to Ratchet, seeking an answer. Jorge merely shrugged having only been briefed the basic's about Six. Ratchet, on the other hand, noticed the silence and turned around.

"That has yet to be decided," he said gruffly before returning to his work.

"Oh, I see." Six could see that the medic was fumbling around for a conversation that wasn't awkward.

Jorge seemed to notice this and spoke up, "so, why do people call you 'Six'?"

"I was the sixth member of a team," Six shrugged. "We referred to each other as our number, sometimes by name. Most people outside of our group only knew us by number and rank."

"Were there just six of you?" Catherine joined in.

"Yes."

"You were just a special forces team then, similar to the SAS and…Navy SEALS?" she glanced at Jorge for that and he nodded with a smile.

Six didn't know much about what Catherine was talking about, but she got the idea. It seemed these two were unaware of the whole situation, Jorge more so than Catherine. Although, they both seemed to be dealing with the whole situation okay even if Catherine was still slightly nervous around her.

"Something like that," Six answered plainly.

"I'll bet you were close. What happened to them?" Jorge continued, trying to keep the conversation going.

"Dead," she answered emotionlessly. Six didn't not feel anything about her team's demise, but she knew how to deal with and after all, they were soldiers. _Soldiers protect Humanity,_ she mentally drilled into herself and glanced up to the medics. Both shifted uncomfortably before sharing a look.

"Sorry," Catherine spoke up, her voice soft and sincere. "We didn't know."

"It's fine."

"Were you close then?" Catherine asked softly.

"Like family."

"Must've been hard," Catherine comforted. "Feeling any pain anywhere?"

"They did their duty," Six dismissed it. "Just a little stiff, but it'll pass."

"How about the burns?" Catherine shifted forwards and pointed at Six's top, "Could you remove it please?"

Nodding, Six shed the navy top and allowed Catherine access to the burns that ranged from second to third degree. She'd been lucky compared to other soldiers, plasma could really do some damage. The second degree burns on her neck and shoulder along with the large third degree burn on her abdominal looked strange. Hoping to work out what the substance was herself, Six continued to study them.

"Jorge, could you replace her fluids please?" Catherine asked from in front of her.

"Sure," was the reply and noise followed as Jorge proceeded to do as asked.

Catherine shifted in front of Six and seemed to noticed what she was staring at so intently.

"It's a synthetic compound that Ratchet made," Catherine explained and Six glanced up from the metallic coloured substance. "I'm sorry, but they won't ever look like normal skin. Ratchet said it was the best way to heal the burns, considering how they were caused. It'll take time for your body to adapt to the compound, however."

"How long?" Six asked, not bothered about the cosmetic problem. "What effect will it have on me?"

"Should only take a week or so and there shouldn't be any problematic side-effects," Catherine started.

"But?"

"Ratchet did mention that it might have a positive effect on the local muscle groups," her voice was hesitant. "However, no one else has had that happen to them, but Ratchet _did_ say that there was a subtle difference in your biology to us here…"

_What?_ Six eyed Catherine skeptically as she spoke with an irritable voice, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know, honest, all he said was that there was a small difference," Catherine defended, moving away slightly. _She's still scared_ , Six thought. _It's to be expected though, Spartan's aren't known for their friendly charm. Besides, that was always Jorge's forte, maybe that's why we got so close…Shut up, Six!_

"Optimus will arrive shortly to take you to your meeting with General Morshower," Ratchet's voice cut through the tense silence that had formed around the group. To her side she heard the Elite chuckle. She didn't grace him with a retort. Instead, she called over to Ratchet.

"What about the Major?"

The large robot turned around and began walking towards her, a box and a bundle of cables in one hand and her helmet in the other.

"Major Lennox will meet you there. Now, I'm going to explain how this works," he gestured with the hand holding the box and cables. "Press this button," he indicated to a flat green button on top of the box. "Place your AI chip in this slot and then press this button," he indicated to another green button that was right next to the AI chip slot. "Connect these," he pointed to the cables, "to the relevant ports in the monitor and then this one," he pointed to a thick grey cable, "to the power supply."

"Got it."

The robot smiled, "Good. I'll give these to Optimus, you won't be able to carry them because of your crutches."

A scowl instantly formed on her face as she growled out, "Crutches?"

"Yes," Ratchet confirmed, the ghost of a frown on his face. "You agreed to have the cast and I am aware that crutches are also required."

"I'm not using-"

"You will," he growled. "Unless you want to stay here."

"Fine," she spat. "Where are these crutches?"

Ratchet looked around and found no sign of them. The frown on his face became more prominent while a smirk found its way onto Six's face.

Eyeing the two medics Ratchet snapped at them, "where are the crutches?"

Catherine jumped while Jorge flinched slightly, but in the end it was Catherine that spoke up.

"They're just outside the Med Bay," her voice cracked at the end and she pointed to the door of the Med Bay. Just as she did the door opened to reveal the tall frame of Optimus Prime holding a pair of crutches.

"Ah, Optimus," Ratchet said; eying the crutches. Shifting her helmet into his other hand he walked over to take the crutches out of Optimus' hand, "I'll take those."

Dropping his hand to his side Optimus eyed the scene before him curiously before speaking, "I'm here for Noble Six and Roh 'Rithinee."

"Just in time." Ratchet flashed Six a smirk as he placed the crutches in front of her, "those are yours and this," he held out the box, cables and helmet to Optimus, "is for you as she's unable to carry them."

"Thank-you, Ratchet," Optmius said, a small smile on his face.

Quickly slipping her top back on, Six grabbed the crutches and slowly managed to get up by herself. Jorge and Catherine were both stood near her encase she fell over, but when they found they were unneeded Catherine sighed and quickly disconnected her from the IV drip.

"Please don't let her strain herself, Optimus Prime," Catherine called softly to the large red robot. "She's not completely recovered."

"If you do you'll be back in my Med Bay before you can say Primus," Ratchet snapped at Six.

"You have my word that Noble Six will return in the same condition she's in now. As will Roh 'Rithinee" Optimus agreed. His words seemed to pacify both Ratchet and Catherine while Jorge still looked dubious. He, however, remained silent.

"Let's get this over with," Six snorted and made her way to the edge of the platform. The hand of Optimus appeared before her, which she hopped onto and was then deposited on the floor by the door.

"We will return shortly, unless you wish to join us?" Optimus asked. Ratchet seemed to consider the question while Jorge and Catherine gave each other confused glances. The Elite on the other hand looked mildly worried at the prospect as he too was moved to the floor.

"Well, I don't have anything that requires my immediate attention," Ratchet murmured, "and it would be useful encase the adapter proves troublesome."

"Then it is settled," Optimus said with a smile that disappeared as he spoke to Catherine and Jorge, his tone filled with regret. "Unfortunately, you are not allowed to attend the meeting. Major Lennox sends his apologies."

Jorge laughed, "That's fine, we don't usually attend meetings that involve the General."

"Besides, there're a few things that need attending to," Catherine added.

"Down you get." Optimus offered them each a hand. With no hesitation both medics climbed onto Optimus' hands and were slowly lowered to the floor.

"Thank-you," Catherine beamed on behalf of her and Jorge. "Will you be needing me later, Ratchet?"

"I suppose," Ratchet agreed begrudgingly. "I'll call you."

"Good luck you two," Catherine called to Six and the Elite as she and Jorge left the room.

"Nice meeting you." Being all Jorge said before the door closed behind them.

Hopping forwards with a click that Six knew would get on her nerves she turned to the others, "Shouldn't we start moving?"

With an agreement from Optimus the group set off to meeting room. On the way they passed a few of the soldiers that inhabited the NEST base. While most of them kept their distance, Six noticed the curious looks that were sent their way. Those that did come over only exchanged a few words with Optimus before they left and the group resumed their trip.

All in all, the trip ending up taking almost twenty minutes due to Six's crutches and the few times they stopped. During the trip Six found it strange moving without her armor, she felt very exposed, and it felt as if she wasn't wearing anything at all. Despite the problem of wearing no armor niggling at the back of her mind, she did manage to remember the way they used form the Med Bay and some other key places. With that logged to the back of her mind Six entered the tall room, followed by Optimus, Ratchet and the Elite.


	8. The End Of My World

 

* * *

~/~

**Noble Six**

Six quickly took in the room that wasn't all that long, but made up for it in height. At the front there was a large flat screen that currently contained an upside-down triangle with a cow skull in the center and the word 'NEST' above it. On the other-side of the room was Major Lennox talking to a man on a smaller screen. Next to him was Ironhide who –Six noticed- was standing out of the shot of the screens camera along with the orb.

"This must be them," Lennox suddenly said. "General Morshower let me introduce Noble Six, Roh 'Rithinee and –although I cannot allow you to see them- Optimus Prime and Ratchet."

The two robots each gave a respectful greeting before quickly sidestepping the screen in order to join Ironhide. After them the Elite gave a quick greeting that was also respectful before he stepped off to the side and allowed Six the introduce herself to the General.

"Sir," she snapped a quick salute, knowing that if she was going to join NEST then she should make a good impression.

The man on the screen nodded as a small smile played at his lips. He appeared slightly hesitant as he spoke, "at…ease, Noble Six?"

Relaxing herself from the automatic stiffness and straightness that had become a reflex when talking to a superior officer, Six nodded in affirmation.

"I'm aware that you want to join NEST, why?" He asked, an eyebrow raised inquisitively.

"Reclaimer!" Guardian called, upset. "We do not have time to waste here, have you forgotten why you followed me?"

"Ye…" Six stopped herself at Guardian's outburst and a harsh frown swiftly worked its way onto her face, _how dare he!_ She wasn't trying to waste time! She was joining NEST so she could help defend Earth and find a way home because she had a feeling that these robots had created some form of space travel. So, how dare that damn orb undermine her! She knew exactly what she was doing. Enraged at his suggestion Six caught a brief flash of surprise from the General before she rounded on the orb.

"I haven't," she snarled quietly. "How do _you_ plan on getting us back?"

"With the necessary resources, construction of a Slip-Stream Space engine is possible."

"It'll take time," Six reminded, calming her tone. "So, in the meantime, I'm going to put myself to good use doing what a Spartan does. Protecting Humanity."

"Unnecessary, your-"

Shaking her head Six cut Guardian off, "I'm doing my duty." Six turned back to the General, "my apologies, Sir."

He frowned slightly, "As I was saying, why do you want to join NEST? I'm aware that there is some tension between you and…aliens."

"I'm willing to put that aside for the benefit of Humanity," Six assured him, "and as you just witnessed I don't have a ride home."

"We don't need half-cocked reasons for joining NEST," the General said steely. "You must be one hundred per cent dedicated."

"I meant no offence, General," Six winced internally. "This is a difficult decision, I don't want to be disloyal to the UNSC or forget about my home, but I cannot stand by while I'm here and leave Humanity to fend for itself."

"Major Lennox mentioned something about a war spanning almost thirty years," he gave her a dubious look. "I'm sure you can understand my hesitation to believe your story."

"You believe I'm working for these…Decepticons."

"A more pliable reason than time-travel. Although, the Decepticons are not known for working with Humans or…Sangheili."

Six cast a short glance at the Elite in question, who merely met her gaze with his own hard amber eyes. _Go crawl back into whatever hole you came from, Hinge-head,_ she mentally growled.

Turning her gaze back to the General she smiled, "I have a collection of mission videos, which should be enough to convince you. I'll warn you now, you may find them disturbing."

"Someone will need to verify their authenticity."

Suddenly Lennox spoke up, "Ratchet's got us covered on that, Sir."

Six frowned at Ratchet. She didn't know he'd done something like that, hopefully Dot was okay and he hadn't poked around her much. If he had then Six wasn't sure if she could live with herself. It was her job to keep Dot and all her information safe.

"Good. Continue then, Noble Six," General Morshower said, bringing her attention back to him.

"I'll be a moment, Sir," Six replied before resting her crutches against the wall and walking over to Optimus. As she did she heard Lennox explaining that she had to set up in order to show them her videos.

"I told you to use your crutches," Ratchet growled at her.

She waved him off and sent him a silent scowl.

"Why-"

"Perhaps you should discuss this later," Optimus suggested as he held out the adapter for her. His words received a grumble of agreement from Ratchet and a small smirk from Six.

Without a word she took the adapter and then held her other hand out for her helmet. Optimus obliged her silent demand and handed her the helmet. Glad to have the familiar weight back in her possession, Six quickly made her way over to the large screen and proceeded to connect the adapter as per Ratchet's instructions.

When she was done Six turned to face everyone, "shall I begin?"

"Go ahead," Major Lennox nodded from his position next to the General's video feed.

"What I'm about to show you is part of a mission called 'Operation: Uppercut'," Six said. "Dot will inform you of the rest."

Six removed the AI chip from her helmet and inserted it into the adapters slot before pressing the green button and stepping back. After a few tense seconds the NEST logo disappeared and was replaced by the familiar glowing grid of blue lights.

"Greetings, I am UNSC AI ADT 6849-9, Auntie Dot," the usual calm female voice came through the speakers. "You will be shown the last part of Operation: Uppercut, which was the mission tasked with the destruction of the Covenant supercarrier ' _Long Night Of Solace'._ Due to lack of assets, Noble Two proposed using the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine in order to recreate the slip-space accident from the Cyguns system. After being approved, Nobles Six and Five were launched into space with the intent to take over the Covenant corvette ' _Ardent Prayer',_ which was on a refuelling track with ' _Long Night Of Solace'._ The Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine used in this attack was from the UNSC Paris-class heavy frigate, ' _Savannah'._ This video will resume from Noble Six's landing on the ' _Ardent Prayer_ '. "

As soon as Dot finished the screen changed again to the Noble insignia and then –after a few seconds- to the view from her helmet came just as she was exiting her Saber-class fighter.

/Video/

A large piece of purple metal arched over above her as a blocky vessel in the background took bright purple shots from the ship she was currently on. The blocky vessel was hovered defensively in front of a large planetary mass. All around her other marines disembarked from their Saber fighters and armed their weapons.

"Noble Six, the _Savannah's_ countermeasures won't work forever," a male voice broke over the comm. "Find a way inside and permanently disable that cruisers communications. As soon as we're sure the corvette can't squawk, we'll initiate Uppercut phase two."

The familiar look of an Assault Rife came into view as Six began mowing down a couple of grunts. She started forwards to go down into the ship, but an Elite jet-packed out and she swiftly shot him down. Reloading, Six jumped down through the purple and blue energy barrier and floated to the floor of the ships interior.

Elites appeared from all around but they proved little hindrance as the Spartan and marines worked their way through them. Alien blood poured all over the floor as the enemy was filled with holes and their bodies were left to float lifelessly in the zero gravity. More muffled shots echoed around the purple interior along with inhuman growls.

An Elite clad in white armour suddenly jumped out in front of the Spartan, but before he could raise his weapon a kick connected with his chest. The Elite stumbled back and extended all four jaws in a roar. Unintimidated, the Spartan raised her weapon and blasted the being full of bullets.

When it stopped moving the Spartan reloaded and brushed past the floating body in a cautious manner. Her caution was rewarded when two more appeared in her line of vision. Appearing not to have noticed her they continued running towards where some other fighting was. The Spartan chased after them while turning invisible.

The next part happened too quickly to properly see as the Spartan deftly pulled out a knife, jumped onto one of the Elite's backs and stabbed into its neck. Ripping out the deeply embedded knife the Spartan jumped off the Elite and onto the other. Landing on its front the Elite barely managed to remain upright as it received a punch to the side of the face with the hand that was holding the knife. That knife was then quickly embedded through the Elites left eye. Flipping off the Elite, the Spartan continued her trail of destruction until the area was clear and the ships Comm. relay was neutralised.

"Holland to _Savannah_ , enemy Comm. relay is now offline," the same voice from earlier said.

"Copy that, I'll take countermeasures. Diverting all power and personal to weapons," Another voice replied.

"Alright Noble, let's get that slip-space bomb on board," the voice now dubbed Holland replied. "Six, head for the hanger."

"Understood, Colonel." Came Six's toneless voice as she made her way through a door, ducking from cover to cover as plasma flew over her head. The Spartan returned her own fire are Holland spoke again.

"Five, meet her there."

"Affirmative, on approach." A new voice with a Hungarian accent confirmed.

Just as the voice finished speaking Six came passed through a blue lit door and into a large hanger. Three strange glowing structures were positioned in the middle, with a set of purple energy doors on either side of the hanger. More plasma flew Six's way as she motioned for the remaining marines following her to move to higher ground.

When the marines had moved away Six switched weapons to the DMR and began taking out the unshielded enemies, one shot at a time. With the help of the marines from above the process didn't take long and they were soon onto the many Elites that were still in the hanger.

Plasma showered over her position, forcing Six to duck behind it. Unfortunately, the plasma was followed by a bright blue grenade falling near her feet. With little time to react Six vaulted over the wall and dropped down onto a lower level before rolling behind a support beam. More plasma caught her and making her shields flicker. Ignoring the damage Six dodge and ducked in between a couple of obstacles as she sent her own return shots. The sounds of Elites taking damage and collapsing on the battlefield gave her confirmation that her shots were hitting their marks.

However, the Elites just kept coming and with them was a barrage of blue plasma and pink mist. Six returned fire with all her might along with one of her grenades. An explosion was accompanied by yells and some lessening in the fire that was coming her way. Wanting to take advantage of the lapse in fire Six lent out of cover to shot an Elite in the head only to have a gun click out of ammunition. With no ammunition left to reload into her DMR, Six changed to her Assault Rifle and fired burst shots at the Elite clad in red. The Elite jumped around as it tried to avoid her fire, but it soon fell under the onslaught and was replaced by another.

As soon as that Elite had been killed a white one in a jetpack flew right up to her and attempted to kick her in the chest. Swiftly blocking the kick Six delivered an uppercut to its jaw and released a torrent of bullets into its chest. The Elite crumpled to the floor and with shouts of 'clear' from the marines Six stepped over the body and towards the centre of the room.

"Hanger's clear, Five," Six confirmed.

"Go for the shield controls, I need in." Being Five's reply, a smile evident in his voice.

"Of course," chuckled Six as she made her way up a level on the opposite side of the room from where she entered. A control panel came into view along with two dead Elites sprawled out in front of it. When the distance between Six and the brightly coloured holographic control panel was reduced the Spartans black armoured gloved reached out and pressed a small holographic button.

The button turned red and Six looked up towards the door as the intensity of the energy door reduced and the grey coloured Pelican entered the hanger. The thrusters under each wing adjusted themselves as the landing gear came down and the Pelican landed with a light thud. The back hatch opened and more marines along with an armoured figure much taller than Six disembarked. The large armoured figure –known as Noble Five- carried a large machine gun in one hand and as Six walked down to greet him he confirmed his boarding of the alien ship.

"Six, get your fire team to the bridge," Holland's ordered as she reached the orange and red Spartan. "The Corvettes refuelling run with the supercarrier will have to be initiated manually."

"On it, Sir," Six confirmed coming to a stop a short distance from Five.

"Five, stay with the bomb," Holland added.

"My pleasure," the large Spartan shifted his weapon into both hands before speaking to Six. "Hear that Lieutenant, I'll be all by my lonesome back here. Make it quick would ya?"

"A challenge, _Five_?" Six asked provocatively.

Five laughed and cocked his head slightly, "why not? I'll give you ten minutes, don't keep me waiting."

Turning away from her teammate Six chuckled darkly, "Copy that."

As she passed some weapon crates that had been put out, Six grabbed some more ammunition and signalled her team to form up behind her. When she reached the glowing blue door Holland's voice broke out over the Comm. to briefly confirm her orders.

The instant the doors opened a couple of grunts came into view, but before they could even fire a shot Six and her team took them down. After them Elites poured out and began bombarding them with fire. Throwing a grenade provided a good distraction for her team to get some shots in and take down the Elites.

Six and her team barred through the room and shot down the remaining resistance, but not without one of her marines being hit by plasma fire. The marine in question shrugged off all the fuss and nodded at Six that he was good to continue. Motioning for some of them to continue to the next room Six was about to check the extent of the damage when an energy sword pieced through his chest. Behind him a large elite rippled into existence roaring in victory before throwing the marine aside.

Without missing a beat Six's gun was on the Elite as he started to charge at her, energy sword ready. Just as he reached her his shields flickered out and before he could even bring his sword up to strike her, she wacked him with her gun and poured bullets into its head. A gory mess ensure, but the Spartan ignored it and made her way over to the still alive –but coughing- marine. Pulling out a canister of Biofoam, Six was about to administer it to the marine when he shook his head.

"Don't waste it, Spartan," he coughed weakly.

"It could save your life," she pressed emotionlessly.

He gave a weak laugh before falling quiet and slumping against the wall he'd been thrown against. Pulling off the dog tag from his neck Six got up and exited the room to join the rest of her team. She then silently handed one of them the dog tag before brushing past them and down the long corridor.

While running over the body of a recently dead Elite a distressed voice came through the comm, " _Savannah_ to Holland, sustaining major structural damage, we need to break off, Colonel."

The equally worried voice of Holland replied briskly, "Copy _Savannah_ , our team is in. Disengage!"

The door before Six slid open and seeing the struggling _Savannah_ through the window she made towards the Elites that were firing on the ship. Unfortunately, she wasn't quick enough.

The large burst of plasma connected with the _Savannah's_ hull, exploding on contact into bright lights of white, purple and blue.

"Break off! Break off!" _Savannah_ yelled over the comms as more plasma shots peppered its hull. "Hull breach! Reactors flaring," the voice was becoming more distraught. "Dammit! I'm losing her!"

One final shot managed to escape before Six reached the Elites and as she silently brought down one, the _Savannah_ exploded in a large burst of brilliant light. Pieces of the ship broke away as she moved onto the next Elite; prepared to enact vengeance for the lives just lost.

Another muffled explosion happened as a chain reaction of light burst throughout the ships body.

" _Savannah_ actual, can you hear me?" Holland's concerned voice burst over the comm.

More light escaped the on-going explosion of the _Savannah_ before it final lost its propulsion and began to droop in space.

"No," Six whispered over the comm.

Smaller orange explosions continued down the length of the now breaking apart ship and a solemn voice spoke to her.

"Frigate's gone, Six. Nothing you can do." It was Five.

Snapping herself back to the present Six dodged out the way of some in coming fire and began to take out her growing rage on the group of Covenant that had just entered the room.

"Noble, you're in deep with no cover," Holland's voice was urgent. "Get that corvette moving and get the hell outta there!"

Throwing another grenade Six laid down more fire as she dodged in and around cover. More enemies fell and soon there was only one left. He was soon taken down in a single shot to the head as she caught him shifting in his cover. The Elites body fell to the floor with a thud that no one in hear team heard as they were rushing to the bridge.

Winding through the twisting corridors, Six signalled for the marines to hold back as she turned invisible. Sneaking through the door and around the room she managed to taken down two commanders before she was noticed. But, by then it was too late for the crew as she called her team in and they wiped them out. Despite the quick execution Six did not avoid getting shot and was thankful that her shield was strong enough to take the onslaught.

Shooting down another Elite the Spartan started to move when hard pink plasma hit the floor beneath her. Vibrations shook through the metal as she jumped out the way and brought her weapon up at the cause. A gold coloured Elite taunted her from the place she needed to be, before it set its weapon back on her and resumed firing. Six rolled out the way and scooped up a plasma grenade that she then launched at the Elite.

To her surprise the grenade hit the Elite on the head and was stuck there. A delighted giggle escaped her as the grenade exploded into a shower of blood and flesh.

Confirmations of clear resounded through the bridge and the shooting died down. Quickly giving her team an order to stand guard, Six proceeded to the front of the ship and got the corvette to resume its refuelling run.

"Well done, Noble Six," the relieved voice of Holland congratulated over the comm. "Uppercut initiated. Corvette is on her way."

"Six," it was Five and his voice was strained with uncertainty. "Our ride's under heavy fire, get back to the hanger."

"Copy that, Five. Still got five minutes on the timer," Six replied as reinforcements attempted to storm the bridge. They were stopped however, when the marines threw grenades and the Spartan scooped up a charred Concussion Rife, which she then bombarded them with.

"Best hurry it up, Six," Five replied, his voice less strained.

Motioning for the marines to follow they charged down the corridor and back into the large empty room where they'd witnessed the destruction of the Savannah. A glance out the window told them that the Frigate was defiantly not getting back up, but they had little time to dwell on it as enemies poured out of the door at the top of the room.

Diving for cover the hail of plasma kept Six and her team pinned for what felt like ages. As she reloaded her Assault Rifle, she caught a marine's eye and when he held up a grenade she nodded. A smirk made its way onto his face and with a yell of 'fire in the hole' he threw it towards the steadily approaching group.

The rate of fire lessened as aliens yelped and tried to jump out of the way of the grenade. Some were not fortunate enough to get out of the way, which was good for Six and her group.

"At your earliest convenience, _Noble Six,_ " Five taunted through the comm.

"Missing me so soon?" Was Six's snarky reply.

There was a chuckle on the other end, "Just thinking the Covies need someone else to shoot at."

Six returned a laugh as she shot down another Elite that had been foolish enough to jump out of cover with its shields still weak. But, as that one went down two more appeared in dark orange armour and focused their fire on her.

Shuffling around her cover, Six spied an energy sword on the floor and scooped it up. She then activated her cloak and crept around the back of the Elites where she stabbed one through the chest. The other noticed and jumped away from her only to have the marines rain down bullets on him until his shield was no more. Tugging the sword from the already dead Elite, Six took her chance and lunged at the final Elite. With the shields gone, little resistance was offered as the blade of plasma burnt through the soft flesh of the Elite.

Not wanting to hang around, Six pulled the blade out the Elite, dashed out the room and up another corridor with the remainder of her fire team on her heels. Busting into the hanger revealed to them more fighting, which they enthusiastically joined in with.

Another fierce battle ensured along with the occasional bout of banter between Six and Five. The combined effort of the Spartans and their marines managed to repel the Covenant troops, but not without losing some of their own. Or in this case all of the marines.

As the waves and waves of Covenant troops were sent their way, marines fell and Six found herself running out of ammunition. She scrounged around on the battlefield for any weapon she could find and sometimes ended up using ones from her dead allies. It only reminded her about how bad everything really was.

The losses weighed heavily on both Spartans as they could do little to stop the odd shots that managed to sneak through their defences and strike down their allies. Towards the end of the battle the banter was losing its energy and by the time it was over and the last Elite had fallen, both Spartans exhaled a weary breath.

"Distance is closing on this vessels refuelling track with the Covenant supercarrier," Dot's voice echoed over the Comm. as the Spartans formed up at the back of the Pelican. Six watched as her teammate began to type in the code to activate the bombs countdown.

"Seventy seconds-" Dot began but a beep interrupted her along with a frustrated sigh from Noble Five.

"Damn it. So, it's going to be like that."

He gave the keypad a whack for good measure before walking to Six, "Well, I've got good news and bad news. This bird took some fire and her thruster gimbal's toast, which means the only way off this slag heap is gravity."

"And the good news?" Six asked, looking up at Five as he came to a stop before her.

"That was the good news."

"At current velocity, fifty three seconds till-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Five muttered, cutting over the AI as he pulled his helmet over his head and let it drop to the floor. The action revealed a dark-skinned face with shortly shaven black hair and stubble. "Bad news is, timer's fried, I'm going to have to fire it manually."

Six sharply took in a breath, "that's a one way trip."

"We all make it sooner or later." There was no regret or sadness on the Spartans face as he continue to bid farewell to his shocked teammate, "better get going, Six. They're going to need you down there."

"J-"

He ignored her and continued talking, "Listen, Reach has been good to me." He reached into the neck of his armour and pulled out a pair of dog tags, "Time's come to return the favour."

With a small smile he held out the hand holding the dog tags and Six reluctantly grabbed it. She said nothing as the larger Spartan lifted her up.

"Don't deny me this," he murmured, walking her to the edge of the hanger. When he reached the edge, the pair took a moment to look each other over one last time. His face flashed with momentary emotion as he pressed his lips to her hand before quickly withdrawing.

"Tell them to make it count," he told her and giving no time for her to reply he threw her off the edge of the ship. One of her hands reached out as he did, but it was a pointless movement.

Six could only watch the curved purple ship as she fell backwards towards the planet behind her. As she fell quickly, she watched as what appeared to be a large ship turned small the moment the supercarrier overtook her field of vision.

The view didn't last long as suddenly a large purple rimmed black hole appeared and ripped through the ships. The hole promptly collapsed in on itself, leaving only a broken ship and a light purple residue in its wake.

Six continued to fall and while it seemed to be a successful mission the video suddenly changed with four words spoken by Dot.

"Slip-space rupture detected."

The view was suddenly on a single new ship, but what looked like barely anything soon turned into a large fleet arriving right next to the single planet.

Dot's words kept repeating as more and more ships appeared in flashes of purple and black. Soon the entire view was taken up by a mass of ships and then, nothing.

The screen went grey and in the corner were the words 'Signal Lost'.

/End Video/

Blinking herself out of the trance that had come over her, Six found that her hands had curled into tight fists. She'd been so sure she could handle seeing his demise, but now? With all the sadness and anger building up inside her, she knew she'd been wrong. Why did she have to get so attached? Why hadn't she made him go off the ship?

She remained silent as her fists tightened and her jaw clenched.

 _Jorge_.

"You were dropped from orbit?" The surprised voice of Major Lennox asked.

Turning, Six saw that Lennox and Morshower both had an impressed, but shocked, look on their face. The robots on the other hand had varied reaction. Ratchet just looked positively angry. Although, what he was angry at, Six had no idea. Ironhide simply looked impressed at the whole thing, but Six had a feeling that he was slightly surprised.

When her eyes landed on the Autobot leader she found he was staring at her. His –what she could only suppose were- eyes were soft and full of understanding, but there was also a rage simmering beneath the surface. She had a feeling that Optimus had seen his fair share of hopeless situations to know what the outcome of Reach had been after those ships arrived. Despite how understanding he may be Six couldn't bring herself to stop hating these aliens, not that she really wanted to. She was fine with hating them.

Taking her eyes off the large red robot she quickly glanced at the Elite who was stood on his own in the corner. His expression was difficult to read, but she just about managed to determine that he was…regretful towards the attack.

 _It's probably just a show,_ she told herself mentally.

"Yes," she finally answered the Major's question. "I had a re-entry pack."

Her blunt words earned a small chuckled from Ironhide and Lennox's eye-brows only rose further up his face.

"You do stuff like this often?"

"Only when necessary," Six assured them.

Ratchet wasn't impressed at her casualness, as he swiftly snapped at her, "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

Six shrugged, "how else would I leave the ship? Besides, I'm still here."

Ratchet grumbled in agreement and while she appreciated the concern, she didn't need an alien telling her what she shouldn't be doing.

"What you've just shown us does prove that you're very proficient in combat," General Morshower commented. "It also shows me that you're more than qualified to work as part of NEST. The only question is, are you someone we can trust?"

"Sir, I assure you, I would never betray Humanity to anyone. I should mention that I do have experience killing Human terrorist cells."

"I was aware that this war had been going on since before your birth. Major Lennox also said that you've been in your military since you were sixteen."

"True, but before the Human-Covenant war Human insurrection was a large problem and when the Covenant showed up it didn't disappear, it only went underground. Unfortunately, I can't show you any videos from back then. My apologies, Sir."

"I see. Your teammate, Noble Five, he seemed much older than you. I'm told that you Spartan Threes are young, was he not a Spartan Three?" The General enquired.

Six knew he was trying to dig for information because it was exactly what she'd do in his position. She couldn't tell him a lot about Jorge as a Spartan Two, but she was sure he'd understand.

"No, Noble Five was a Spartan Two. They're much faster, stronger and larger than Threes, but they're also more expensive, which is why there's not many of them. I can't tell you much more, Sir," Six explained. "It's classified."

The General nodded in understanding and his eyes flickered to the screen behind her before he spoke again. "What can you tell my about your AI? Would we be able to create our own here?"

_Ah, I see how it is._

Six shook her head, "you wouldn't even be able to create an AI like Dot. The process is not something you would expect and the technology to do it doesn't exist, Sir."

"What is the process?"

"With all due respect, Sir, I'm not going to reveal to you the one thing the UNSC has excelled in."

He didn't look pleased, but he didn't press the matter either. "I don't have anything on your name, do you have one?"

"Spartan-Bee-Three-One-Two is what I'm known by."

The General hummed, "It will do for the moment. If we allow you to join NEST will you co-operate?"

"Yes, Sir," Six agreed. "Do you want to see another mission video?"

"I suppose it couldn't hurt," he murmured in agreement. There was a hard look in his eyes and Six could tell that he was having a hard time accepting that this would happen to Humanity. A quick glance around the room got similar reactions from the others. Much to Six's surprise the Sangheili seemed ashamed; she frowned at that. _Why are you so….regretful, hinge-head? What's your game?_

"My earlier warning still applies," Six said. "This is just before I met up with my team."

Again Six told Dot to begin. The AI did as asked and captured the attention of everyone in the room. She explained how Six had landed safely on Reach only to find an invasion in full swing. Her skills at keeping people up to date quickly came into play as she ploughed through Six's actions that had occurred during that day; saving civilians, evacuating civilians and, of course, finding her team.

When the AI finished talking the screen began to play out the mission, which involved Six flying around a large burning city as she took down Covenant communication jammers.

/Video/

The burning and smoking Human city was a constant backdrop throughout the entire mission. Some buildings were blown apart while others were merely leaking smoke through the smashed windows. Bright red and orange flames would lick out the top or throughout multiple floors as they raged all through the night. The fames spewed out smoke that left the sky filled with a thick fog that made it almost impossible to see through. It was in that fog and darkness that fighting could always be heard, not matter where Six was and the eerie hum of Covenant aircrafts was never far away.

Whenever Six left a building in which she had battled through hordes of aliens in order to detonate a jammer, she would always be subject to more. Small agile aircrafts would constantly be on her tail as well as larger, but heavier hitting ships. Six always managed to deal with the purple machines and appeared to never lose her cool. Not even when one of the aircrafts in her team was shot down did she cry out, or curse.

The more everyone in the room watched, the more they realised just how different Six was from the average soldier. It wasn't her exceptional abilities or her expensive armour. It was her. It was the quiet, but noticeable giggling after every few kills. It was the lack of emotion when one of the marines in her team died. It was how _inhuman_ she was.

It was as if she was a _machine._

Two jammers were down. One in a hospital and the other in a Club filled to the brim with giant armoured beasts that refused to go down. A multitude of dead aliens and marines were left throughout the two buildings, but Noble Six still held strong. Her Assault Rifle and DMR were both still loaded with ammunition and ready to tear through anymore enemies that came her way.

However, it became apparent that this last jammer would be must more different to the first two. As Six stepped into the building alone after taking out a few grunts a few other enemies appeared. The amount seemed too few to be protecting something that was of so much tactical value.

When all was clear and there was no movement, Six walked into an elevator and quickly rode it to the top. She cautiously stepped out with her weapon raised, expecting something to launch itself at her. But nothing did.

The whole level was silent.

She saw bodies of marines were strewn over the floor. Their wounds were caused by plasma, clear evidence that there had been Covenant on this level. But, there were too few Covenant bodies for those assigned to defend the jammer to all be dead. Something was clearly not right.

Lightning flashed outside and soon after the roll of thunder followed it. Six rounded a corner and as she did there was a human scream. Following the noise with her gun taking the lead Six was led to a marine holding a gun to his head. The obviously traumatised marine began rambling about not signing up to kill aliens and not wanting to be turned into one. Saying nothing to the man Six continued towards the jammer and with the voice of her teammate rolling over the Comm. she promptly turned it off.

It was as if a switch had been thrown, as the quiet room was filled with buzzing. A warning was shouted over the Comm. about it being a trap and soon enough a horde of giant bugs flew from all directions towards Six. Six dodge around as many shots as she could while she shoot back and retreated back to the elevator, but green coloured plasma still managed to hit her. The shots peppered her shield, causing it to drop to dangerously low levels.

There was a loud bang in the background and as Six retreated back to the elevator she passed the body of the marine from earlier. His dark blood coated the floor and walls. Next to him was pistol that had obviously been the instrument of his suicide. A shot sullen sigh was the only sign of emotion from Six as she continued to fire on the enemy.

Just as she tumbled back into the elevator her gun clicked out. With the button pressed she reloaded and prepared to fight her way out the building. Although it seemed her preparation wasn't needed as the exit was quiet. There were no aliens in sight as Six dashed out the building and into the thundering night.

While she did two voices were speaking over her comm. The male one confirmed the success of the mission and passed on new orders while the female one accepted the new orders before being cut off. It was only a few seconds, but it was enough to get the male voice worried as he demanded an answer. When the female voice spoke again there was a small sigh of relief from Six as she made her way to ONI tower.

Another evacuation commenced around the large tower as Six did her best to ensure everyone made it out. She spent her time dodging around the enemy, taking down small turrets and causing as much havoc as she could for her adversaries. It was safe to say that her efforts paid off and all the personnel from the tower made it to safety.

With the mission done Six was allowed to meet up with her team. The reunion didn't last long, as after taking a call from their command everything around them exploded. The Spartans dashed to the elevators as they discussed what they were to do next. The woman Six entered the lift with mentioned something about it being her first glassing, but she quickly moved onto another topic. The new topic was her about their order, of which some of them weren't happy about. While in the middle of voicing her disagreement, the woman with a cybernetic arm was shot through the head.

It had happened so quickly that no one watching the video had expected a slither of pink of burst through the top of the woman's helmet. Her team were on the cause in a heartbeat as the woman collapsed lifelessly to the floor. Six was knelt down next to her as she fired off her pistol in one hand and held her comrade in the other. The attempt to shot down the enemy was futile as the large aircraft that had appeared overhead zoomed off quickly.

When it had gone it the team proceeded to drag their comrade's body into the bunker that she'd only fallen meters from. The door slid shut as they all entered the room and before the video skipped to another part a quiet curse from Six was heard.

"Damn it."

The video quickly resumed to the four Spartans stepping out into a city that had been levelled. Whatever 'glassing' was it could clearly deal a lot of damage. All around them buildings crumbled while fire raged all around. Metal supports and cables draped out of the buildings they were once a part of. In the background more buildings were falling into a dark red sky that was boarded by smoke and darkness. Little else was seen besides carnage.

/Video End/

It was at that point that the video stopped and Dot's emblem appeared floating on the screen. However, the AI remained silent as did everyone else in the room. 


	9. Don't Trust Them

 

* * *

~/~

**Noble Six**

"My God, this is what awaits us in the future?" General Morshower gasped. He and Will both appeared dishevelled and shocked by the prospect that this was the future. Six wasn't all too sure. Something about this past wasn't right. The Covenant was defiantly the first contact with alien life that Humanity had had. But if that was true, where was she?

"You are mistaken," the high pitched voice of Guardian called. Everyone snapped out of the daze they'd been in and looked over at him. Even Six perked up a bit. "This video does not show your future."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Major Lennox asked in confusion.

"The device I took from the Reclaimer has the ability to manipulate slip-stream space so that the user may travel to an alternate dimension. My knowledge on the device is limited as its existence was always considered a myth in the Forerunner encume."

 _Wait-What? I'm in an 'alternate dimension'? He's got to be joking, that's not even possible!_ An internal battle raged within Six as she tried to warp her head around what she'd just been told. Her mind kept resisting that what the orb had said was true. However, part of her accepted it, as if it made sense when related to her current situation, but now was not the time for her inner debate. She was angry that the orb had decided to spring this on her now, and she wanted to know why.

"Why didn't you mention this?!" Six growled.

"You did not ask," Guardian replied.

Clenching her teeth, Six ground out another question, "how do we get back now?"

"Any teleportation device may be usable with the device, although producing our own slip-stream space engine would grantee us a way back. However, I'm uncertain as to when it shall return us as my information on this device is limited," Guardian explained. His tone was tense and Six had a feeling he was just as annoyed as her about their predicament.

"If I may," the General spoke up. "What is this 'slip-stream space'? You've both been throwing the term around."

Six was about to explain, but Guardian beat her to the punch. "Slip-stream space is a largely used way of travelling the galaxy. There are other applications of slip-stream space, but travel is what we've been referring to. Essentially it involves opening a…'gate-way' to set of seven dimensions that run alongside our own, these make up slip-stream space. Time flows differently in slip-stream space and means long distances can be travelled in short periods of time."

"You use another dimension to travel through across the galaxy?" Major Lennox asked, an eyebrow raised in disbelief.

"Among other applications, yes," Guardian put simply, floating over to Six.

"An impressive feat," Ratchet said, impressed. "Perhaps you could explain it to me in depth?"

"If the Reclaimer allows it."

The statement surprised Six as she gave a questioning glance to the orb.

"You have been defensive about permitting others access to my maker's technology as well as your own. If you refuse them access then I will follow suit, Reclaimer."

Six was unsure what to say. Why was Guardian acting like this? Why was he so dedicated to following her wishes? She needed to know more about its intentions. Why did it call her Reclaimer? Why was that facility there? Why had it not made contact with anyone when the planet was colonised? She had so many questions, but no answers. She was complete lost and that was partially why she was joining NEST. She needed a purpose and defending Humanity was something she had experience in. It was essentially what she lived for.

"I'm curious, why do you follow the orders of Noble Six?" General Morshower asked the question everyone in the room was thinking, including Six.

"Because she is a Reclaimer, a child of my makers and an inheritor of all they left behind. It is my duty to ensure she comes to no harm and that she fulfils her mission."

"What mission?" The General was tense and Six inwardly cursed at the orb.

"To get her to Requiem and the _Librarian_ of course." There is was again, the slight change in pitch as Guardian said Librarian. Six couldn't quite put her finger on it, but something about what the orb wanted her to do was off. She wasn't sure why though.

"I assume the Librarian is one of your…makers?"

"That is correct."

Guardian's statement brought forth some of Six's curiosity towards the Forerunners. If they still existed and held Humanity in such high regard, why did they not step in to help them with the Covenant? Why had the UNSC never come across them? They had structures on Reach, which had been completely unused apart from Guardian. Why would they just abandon their creations?

Six frowned, what had happened to these Forerunners?

She was about to voice her question when Optimus asked instead, "Noble Six said that she had never encountered a Forerunner. Why would that be if they still live?"

"My makers are very few in number as many perished during the Forerunner-Flood war and the activation of the Halo Array. Only a few remain, but other than the _Librarian_ their location is unknown to me."

Taking in the knowledge Six decided to stay quiet. The others seemed to want to ask more questions, which would allow her to collect more information on who the Forerunners were and what their motives might be.

"What is the 'Flood'?"

"Halo Array…you mentioned that earlier. What is it?"

Both Major Lennox and Optimus asked a question at the same time. Lennox sounded suspicious as he asked what the Halo Array was while Optimus seemed mildly curious about the Flood. The pair both apologised to each other and Six did her best not to gag.

"The Flood is a parasitic organism that consumes sentient life forms of sufficient biomass and cognitive capability. Because of the nature of the Flood, my makers were forced to construct the Halo Array and," Guardian paused as it he was trying to find the right words, or perhaps it was just for dramatic effect; Six wasn't entirely sure. "Use it to erase the galaxy of all sentient life. Of course, the galaxy was reseeded afterwards, which is why the Reclaimer exists today."

Keeping her reaction to a minimum Six inwardly reeled from the revelation. These Forerunners had wiped out everything in the galaxy, just like that? Was the Flood that bad that it forced a race that appeared so advanced to destroy every living being? She had a feeling that it hadn't been an easy choice and in the end it appeared to have paid off. Her existence was proof of that.

Six took a glance at everyone else in the room and their expressions appeared equally shocked and devastated. The robots appeared the most hit and Six wasn't sure why. _Perhaps they can comprehend it more than us humans? Even with all that I've seen I can only just believe it._

"The decision, I trust, was not easy?" Optimus rumbled with a voice full of understanding; as if he'd done something similar.

"Even at the end, I've heard, there was hesitation," Guardian confirmed. Optimus' hard face softened a little at the answer and the large robot nodded in acceptance.

General Morshower spoke up, "Major, I believe I have everything I need to warrant Noble Six joining NEST. The other two shall be put under consideration, but in the mean time they will remain with you. If there is nothing more you or the Autobots wish to add then I want these three debriefed on all they know and a report on it on my desk within the week."

A grimace rippled through the Major's face, "yes, Sir."

"Good, I'll be in touch." And with that the line went dead. A moment of silence settled over the room. The General had made an exit with such haste that Six had a feeling he didn't want to hear any more world shattering information. She was inclined to feel that way too, but information helped keep her alive and at the moment she needed all she could get.

~/~

**Noble Six, Four Hours Later**

The past few hours had involved a lot of arguing with the robot called Ratchet and some tinkering around with her armour. The reason for the arguments being that the robot just wouldn't leave her alone when she did something he didn't like. She didn't know why it bothered him so much, but she didn't care either. If the robot wanted to work himself up over her then he was more than welcome to.

When they'd returned from the meeting with General Morshower, Major Lennox had left her the Elite and Guardian in the MedBay with instructions to 'sit tight' while he found them a more permanent place to stay. Six had taken that opportunity to remind him of the deal they had that she would be out the MedBay soon. She'd then added that it didn't matter if she had to sit in a hanger or out on the airstrip, she just wanted away from the Elite. The Major had nodded at that and half an hour later she was placed in a giant hanger.

The hanger itself had a considerable amount of computers against the wall opposite her in three rows. A few personnel were working at them and from what Six could make out they were sifting through any reports of meteor sightings. She knew they were on the lookout for more of the robots, probably both 'good' and 'bad'. Apart from that the rest of the hanger was pretty much empty apart from two high built railings that ran either side. She wasn't sure what they were for, but she had a feeling it was to do with the robots.

Speaking of the robots, there was a certain flamed truck that had not moved since she'd been placed in the hanger.

He was the leader of the…'Autobots' and his name was Optimus Prime. Six narrowed her eyes at him before turning her attention back to her severely damaged armour. He could stay and watch her all he wanted, it wouldn't make her hate them any less.

"Noble Six, we currently lack the required materials to repair your armour," Dot spoke up from Six's helmet.

"I know," Six sighed. She knew the moment she'd been captured that her armour needed extensive repairs, but she didn't want to believe it. Her amour had always been there. She'd always had it and now….now it was broken. It was almost beyond repair unless…. _unless I can find that Forerunner armour._

She needed to find Guardian if she wanted to find out where the Forerunner armour was. She knew it was on the ship, but she didn't know where exactly and it wasn't as if they were going to let her off the base. Yet.

"Dot," Six murmured. "Can you contact Guardian's Approach?"

"I lack the necessary power."

Six chuckled darkly before lightly slamming her hands onto her table. Despite the restraint she put on the motion, two small dents were made in the metal. "Of course you do."

"My apologies, Noble Six," the AI sounded sad, or as sad as a dumb AI could.

Even though Dot couldn't see, Six nodded anyway. The only other way to get in contact would be through…Optimus.

Six glanced at the truck out of the corner of her eye. He sat parked near the entrance of the hangar ever silent, but she knew he was watching her. She didn't want to rely on _them_ for something. It went against everything she'd ever been taught; aliens are the enemy.

 _If they're the enemy why are you working with them?_ She shook her head. It was her only option and she couldn't just stand by while aliens attacked Humanity from the shadows. No matter where she was, she would always protect Humanity.

 _I'll need armour to protect Humanity_. Sighing in resignation, Six made her decision. With a quick goodbye to Dot she got up and made her way to the truck. As she did she passed the pair of crutches that she'd thrown on the floor and gave them a small nudge so that they weren't in the way.

He must have been listening to her conversation with Dot because before she even reached him he spoke to her.

"Would you like me to contact Guardian for you, Noble Six?" He asked before adding sincerely, "my apologies, but I couldn't help but overhear."

"Just find him," she snapped as she came to a stop a few meters from the truck.

"He's on his way."

Holding in her surprise as to how quick that was, Six began to turn back around, muttering 'thanks' as she did. She didn't get far before Optimus called out to her again.

"Could I have a moment?"

"Depends, what for?" Six kept her back to him, her whole body tense.

The sounds of a transformation echoed behind her. Gears and metal rearranged before sliding into place and hydraulics hissed softly while she turned back around to face him.

"I may not be able comprehend how you feel towards me and my comrades," Optimus began as he knelt down and levelled his gaze with hers. "But, we are not this 'Covenant'. We do not seek the destruction of Humanity, we mean only to co-exist peacefully."

Six narrowed her eyes, "my hatred towards aliens isn't a switch I can turn on and off when I please. When you've seen people you cared about slaughtered by aliens just because their Human, it tends to leave a lasting impression."

"Then perhaps we can show you that not all alien life is like the Covenant," Optimus suggested, a soft look in his eyes.

"I wouldn't waste your time."

Optimus regarded her before rumbling, "it cannot hurt to try."

Six raised her eyebrows a fraction as she glared into the robots bright blue eyes. For some reason she found those eyes full of compassion and confusion. She knew the confusion was because of her, her opinion and her general appearance. But, the compassion was what stumped her. Why was he being like that? What did he want? He had to want something because there was _always_ an ulterior motive.

"What do you want from me?" Six ground out the question, her features hardening while Optimus' were overcome by confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean!" Her voice rose in anger.

In an attempt to calm her Optimus lifted up his hands in a calming gesture. "I hold no hidden motives towards you, Noble Six. I just hope that we can show you that not all aliens are the same and that maybe one day you can put your trust in us."

"I doubt it."

Optimus looked like he was about to say something more, his face seemed to hold pity for her for a split second before it snapped back to normal when the loud voice of Guardian called out.

"Reclaimer! You requested my assistance?"

"You said you could fix my amour by using the other suit," she prompted. She turned from Optimus and made took a few steps so that she was in front of Guardian's floating form.

"Of course! Would you like me to fetch it for you so that we may begin?"

"Yes," Six turned, but the image of Emile's knife flashed into her mind and she hesitated.

Guardian notice this, "Is there something else Reclaimer?"

Swallowing the small lump that was beginning to form in her throat Six inwardly berated herself for being so sentimental, "There was a large knife that I had, I want you to bring it back for me."

"As you wish," Guardian said neutrally before he sped off without another word. Six was about to return to her armour and Dot when Optimus spoke to her again.

"I have the impression that this weapon holds a certain sentimental value."

Six snorted, "What gave you that idea?"

"There is nothing wrong with gaining attachments to your comrades, it can only make you stronger as a team," was the wise reply.

"I don't see how, besides I prefer working alone. I only want the knife because it's mine," Six said with a sense of finality, hoping to end the pointless conversation that was beginning to form.

Although it seemed Optimus didn't want to leave it there, "if it holds no value then why did you hesitate?"

Six was about to say something when he held up a large hand and continued talking, "the worst thing you can do is lie to yourself about how little value your comrades hold to you. You'll regret it when the time comes. You must remember that there is no weakness in it, only strength."

His words seemed to come from the heart –or his equivalent- and while Six knew what he said was true in some respects, it didn't agree with the way she worked. Besides, there was weakness in caring for your teammates; they could be used against you.

"Before you return to your tinkering, Ratchet had requested me to find out how much pain you're in. The anaesthetic he gave you would have stopped working by now," Optimus said as -what Six now understood as the usual- concern made its way into his voice. Truth be told the painkiller had ran out a while ago, but Six had been too preoccupied to notice anything other than the numb throbbing that expanded over her entire body. It wasn't off putting and she could function with it, although the fact that her burns hurt much less than the rest of her body concerned her somewhat. She was pretty sure that they should be the most painful; perhaps it had something to do with the substance that the robot had used on it?

"It's nothing I can't deal with," she answered shortly while she considered voicing her concern over the substance.

Optimus blinked as he asked, "What is it that bothers you?"

"The substance that your medic used on me, what does it do?" Six asked before she quickly added, "I don't feel any pain in the area he used it."

The large robot's face turned thoughtful for a moment before he spoke again, "The substance that Ratchet used to heal you is a biological cyber-matter, which he began experimenting with many years ago. You are one of the few that Ratchet has used it to heal as he only does so in dire circumstances. It has been known to have positive side effects on the human body, but I've heard that your biology is slightly different so you may gain different benefits."

As he paused to gauge her reaction, she couldn't help but feel a little angry. They'd used some strange alien experiment to heal her! What if it'd made her worse? What about the others they'd used it on?

It seemed Optimus was noticing her inner wrath and decided to explain before she got any angrier, "Ratchet would not have used the substance on you had he not needed to. Rest assured it has gone through many tests against human tissue and those who've been healed by it are perfectly healthy."

"If it's so great then why doesn't he use it more?" Six snapped at him.

"We do not want the humans to before dependent on our technology; they must develop on their own at their own pace. Also we fear that somehow it could be used as a weapon and that is something we do not want to be responsible for."

Six nodded, accepting the explanation for what it was worth. While she was annoyed that they were keeping things from Humanity that could aid them in the future, she knew that maybe it wasn't the right time. She knew enough about history to know that she'd landed before the United Earth Government had been founded, so with all the nations still separated she could only imagine what could happen if one became more advanced than the others.

Convinced that the conversation had drawn to a close, Six started to walk back to her armour when Optimus called out to her again. Although, she didn't turn around when he did, nor did she comment on what he said.

"Should you ever need anything do not hesitate to speak to me, Noble Six."

The words were followed by the sound of his transformation before the room fell quiet once more, apart from the light clicking that came from the people using the computers.

When she reached the table she'd been working at, Six unconsciously reached out to straighten Jorge's dog tag –which she'd laid out with the others- before she promptly stopped herself. She'd just said that getting close to comrades was a foolish thing to do, but she was such a hypocrite. She'd gotten close to Noble team; specifically Noble Five. Now look at her, moping around and mulling over their deaths. She was a Spartan for crying out loud, a solider, just like they were.

 _They did their duty, just as I'm going to do mine._ She curled the fingers of her outstretched hand into a tight fist and vowed that she would be like her team and protect Humanity with everything she had. _And nothing will get in my way._

"Dot, do you have any information on Slip-space engines?" It was a long short, but it was worth a try to see if the AI had something.

"Regretfully I do not carry that sort of information, my apologies Noble Six."

"It's fine, do you have an estimate on how long it would take the Covenant to get to Earth?" Six asked the question despite how helpless the answer could make her feel. Besides, she needed a deadline.

"From Reach it was estimated that the Covenant would reach Earth within the next six months."

Six cursed, she didn't like that answer. Could she create a slip-space engine from scratch in less than six months? Probably not, but she was going to do her damn best. She wouldn't give up on getting home, even if it meant arriving too late. She had to do her duty.

Her thoughts suddenly drifted to the package that Doctor Halsey had given her. It had been an AI that, according to Halsey, had access to information that was a game changer; something that could possible save Humanity. Whatever it was, Six hoped it worked because maybe then there would be something to come back to and defend.

Then there was Jun.

On that last mission Carter had ordered him to get Halsey off planet and Six couldn't help but hope that he'd done just that. After all, the sniper of Noble team was a force to be reckoned with, be it from a distance or close up. He'd been their eye in the sky on Reach and for one mission he'd been her scouting partner. A small smile crept onto her face at the memory of their playful banter throughout the mission as they'd constantly tried to outdo each other.

"Was this the knife you were referring to?" The loud, high voice of Guardian called out to her and Six turned to find the orb carrying both the knife and the armour she'd requested.

"Yes," Six reached out and grabbed it. "Thanks."

As she carefully ran her fingers over the blade, parts of Emile's speech surfaced in her mind.

" _Don't cut yourself," the large Spartan had said as he'd handed his knife to Kat. The rest of Noble team had gathered around her as they'd all been crowded into a small cave._

" _Who's next?!" The defiant words had been yelled by Emile as he'd blasted an Elite in the chest with his shotgun. Right after a plasma sword had burst through the Spartan's chest, but he hadn't flinched._

" _I'm ready! How 'bout you?" Emile had roared as he'd grabbed his knife and stabbed it into the Elite's neck. Both had fallen from the gun and-_

Six stopped herself and placed the knife on the table alongside the dog tags. It mad a sharp clang as its well sharpened edge hit the table's surface and the rooms light danced around the blood coated metal. Six made a metal note to clean it when she could, before she turned her attention back to the orb.

"Where do we begin?" She asked it.

"I shall need to thoroughly scan your armour to find what parts we shall be using and how we will put the armors together. It will only take a moment."

Six nodded and made a sweeping motion with her hand towards her amour. While she didn't wholeheartedly agree with letting the orb scan her amour there was little she could do. She needed her amour fixed and it did seem that Guardian wouldn't reveal information without her say so.

After a few moments of watching Guardian go over her amour with a blue light, Six asked if they could begin.

"Yes, I shall ask the Ancilla Hybrid if they have some tools that we will need." With that, Guardian floated over to Optimus and within the hour Six and the orb were both at work as they began the long process of repairing her amour. There were a few times where the hanger they resided in would erupt with noise; most of it coming from the tools they used while there was some arguing.

Despite the hard work that went on, little progress was made and by the time Six came out of her working haze the hanger was completely empty apart from her, Guardian and Optimus. Outside, the sun had well and truly set as the sky was completely back, save for the stars that shone through the darkness of space.

"Is something the matter, Reclaimer?" Guardian asked, noticing that she'd stopped working.

Six spared the orb a glance as he continued to fire a fine blue beam at a small section of the new armor's chest that she'd been working on a few hours ago. So far the pair had only managed to fix a tiny fraction of one of the holes in the armour, the reason being that it took a long time to create the metal that would be accepted by the armour. Also, said metal meant that Six was taking apart her own amour, piece by piece; something that did not fall well with her.

"Nothing, just having a small breather," Six answered after a while and turned back to the piece of armour before her. The black metal had been part of her chest piece, specifically the part that went over her shoulder. The symbol of the UNSC was still visible, despite the fact that the metal had received some alterations. Instead of being the pitch back she was used to it was now a dark shiny grey with a dark imprint where the UNSC symbol was.

Holding out the piece to Guardian, the orb finished what he was doing and took it off her. Then, without a word it returned to work. Six was about to do the same when she heard a set of footsteps echo through the hanger. She glanced up to see who it was and was met with the smiling face of Major Lennox.

"Noble Six," he greeted, only to receive a nod in response. "You free for a bit? 'Cause some of us are heading down to the mess hall and I wouldn't be surprised if you were hungry."

Considering the offer Six was surprised to find that it'd been a long time since she'd last eaten and now that she thought about it, her throat felt a little dry.

"I'll join you," Six agreed, she then turned to Guardian. "Could you keep an eye on Dot?"

Without stopping its work the orb assured her that Dot would come to no harm and despite her reluctance to leave the AI, Six found herself using her crutches to walk to the mess hall with the Major.

They walked in silence for the majority of the journey and Six had a feeling that the Major was trying to think of something to ask her. Although, from the corner of her eye she didn't see him once look at her. She also noticed that the cheerful simile from earlier had gone.

"Something the matter, Major?" Six inquired, her curiosity getting the better of her.

He looked up at her, a stony expression on his face as he spoke, "Since the battle last year we've only had a couple of contacts with the Decepticons. You've been here less than a day and you've already got them hunting you down. Something's not right."

Six frowned a little, how did these Decepticons even know she was here? "They're after me?"

"Yeah, Guardian ran into a few a few hours ago. He said they tried to attack him after he mentioned you –because you're Human- and then he killed them. I've got the emblem he brought back if you want to give it back to him."

"You keep it, did he say anything else?"

The Major shook his head, "not really, they just wanted you. It's weird…"

Her frown eased away and she cocked her head, "What makes you say that?"

Major Lennox scratched the side of his jaw in thought, "The only leadership we know the 'Cons have at the moment is Starscream and this isn't something that he would do. He's more interested in taking over the Earth than looking for…whatever it was that clued them into you. It's as if someone else is giving them orders…"

"Maybe you're right," Six said in agreement. Maybe if she knew more, she could give him more of an insight. "What Decepticons do you know of? And what role do they play?"

Will thought for a moment. His whole body was ridged, as if even the just talking about the Decepticons made him angry. His reaction was strangely similar to Six's when she talked about the Covenant, which told her that this guy had been given the same brutal introduction to aliens that she had.

"The major players at the moment are defiantly Starscream and apparently there's one called Soundwave hanging around, but we've never seen him." The look he gave her told her that this didn't sit well with anyone and what he revealed next gave her the reason why, "Soundwave is the Decepticons Communications Officer and from what Optimus has mentioned, he was very loyal to Megatron. Starscream was Megatron's second in command, but we've heard that he wasn't always that happy about it."

"Soundwave wouldn't be one to give orders and if he's as loyal to Megatron as you say then he would only follow orders from Startscream." Six paused in thought as she tried to relate these robots to Humans despite the fact that they weren't. The problem was that she knew very little about their behavior, but….That was it! Not wanting to get ahead of herself Six asked the Major, "Was there ever anyone that Megatron answered to?"

He shook his head and the triumphant feeling she'd had a moment ago quickly disappeared. Just as she was about to rethink the situation the Will spoke up.

"You'll have to ask Optimus for details about Megatron. Even though we've been fighting against them for almost a year, there's little I know about their leader apart from the fact he's dead and I would rather it stayed that way."

"Maybe I will…" Six said reluctantly as they entered the bright and busy mess hall. There was a brief silence in which a few people glanced in her and Will's direction. A few friendly nods came their way before everyone quickly went back to what they were originally doing and Six proceeded to get some food. With half her attention on asking for what she wanted Six took in the mess hall.

Unlike most UNSC mess hall's the walls were made from a navy coloured metal and there appeared little divide between soldiers. While the room was filled with chatting and laughing there was the odd table that was void of anyone. Looking at the empty tables, Six was tempted to go sit at one just like she used to. But, looking at Will as he nodded for her to follow him while he carried his and her tray, Six wondered how it could hurt to just _sit_ with some of the soldiers.

When Will placed her tray on the table the cheesy smell of Lasagna hit her. The aroma caused her stomach to rumble as she realised that it had been too long since she'd last eaten something that wasn't field rations. It seemed that the others heard her stomachs display of hunger as the dark skinned man opposite her chuckled.

"The Major been starving you?" He cast a smirk in the Will's direction.

"It wouldn't be a proper introduction if she wasn't starving," Will joked as Six propped her crutches up and they both sat down.

"Or dying of thirst," the man chipped in, earning a small chuckled from the other two. Will also cracked a smile before he started to introduce Six to the three people who were sat at their table.

"Noble Six…" he began slowly and Six could tell he felt strange referring to her like that. Despite his discomfort he continued as he indicated to the man opposite her, "this is Robert Epps, Chief Master Sergeant of the US Air Force."

"Noble Six?" A confused look made its way onto his face as he turned to Six, the rest of the table also joining in as they waited for her answer.

"I was the sixth member of a team called Noble," Six explained. "You can refer to me as three-one-two if you prefer."

"They always refer to soldiers as numbers where you come from?" Robert asked, surprised.

Six smirked, "Only the lucky ones."

Her words were received by a light chuckle down the table and Six took the moment to attack some of her food. While she chewed on what was probably the best thing she'd eaten in a long time, one of the others with a similar accent to Epps asked her a question.

"What was your team like? If you don't mind me asking," the sandy haired soldier asked before adding, "James Anderson, Master Sergeant of the US Amy Rangers."

"Close, like any other team, but I guess we were closer than most," Six said after swallowing some food. "We each had our own specific skill set."

"What was yours?"

Six sent him an evil smirk. "I made people disappear."

"An assassin?" A man with short dark hair said with an accent that very different to the others. "I'm Graham Walker, Captain in the British Army."

Six nodded, stabbing some of her Lasagna with her fork, "I was the replacement for another Spartan who is currently MIA. Before I was assigned to Noble, I dealt with the UNSC's _other_ problem."

"He's still alive?" Graham asked carefully. It seemed he knew he was entering a touchy subject, if Six's stabbing at her food was any indication.

"Spartan's never die," Six repeated the lie that everyone had drilled into their mind. "They're only missing in action."

Will's cough brought Six out of her momentary lapse into the past. She turned her head a little to face him and saw that his face was almost full of worry. It soon disappeared when her usual scowl returned and he decided to steer the conversation in a new direction, "How did the training exercise today go?"

The rest of the table groaned and the one named Robert spoke up, "It was going pretty good, until….Knock Out."

"Ah." The acceptance in Will's voice made Six raise an eyebrow in curiosity. By the sounds of it, this Knock Out usually did something wrong. "What was it this time?"

Robert turned to Graham, "You tell him man, you were there."

"Alright," Graham sighed, his lips twitching a little. "The exercise was going fine. We were starting to push back Longarm and Salvage, there were snipers up high to warn us if Knock Out was around. We'd also put down two of the experimental EMP mines just in case. We never expected him to go racing through both."

Robert and James both grinned while Graham struggled not to and Will stopped what he was doing, his face perplexed.

"How did he even…" Will began and unable to finish his sentence he motioned for Graham to continue.

"Captain Hughes did a good job of directing the set-up," Graham confirmed with a smile.

"She's one of yours isn't she?"

"Not quite, she's SRR."

Will grinned, although –Six noted- it was evident he knew very little of this 'SRR', "I see."

Not wanting to elaborate, Graham continued with his story. The story consisted of how Knock Out had gone speeding up behind them as a motorcycle only to have his back tire shot by one of the snipers. He'd then proceeded to go through the first EMP mine as he tried to turn onto another road, which led to him barrelling into the second mine. Graham had also mentioned that while he'd been crashing the majority of his team had managed to shoot him with their paint rounds –Six had raised her eyebrows at this, paint rounds?- and therefore covered the green Autobot in bright colours.

Graham finished off his story by concluding that Knock Out's takedown had given everyone the motivation to push back Salvage and Longarm. Apparently it was an easy victory and the exercise had only lasted just over an hour instead of the usual three or more. From what Six had noticed, it seemed all the people at this base were the best of the best, Special Forces or both.

She must have had a look of confusion on her face because Will asked her if something was wrong.

"Don't you use stun rounds instead of paint rounds?" She knew the question sounded ridiculous, but surely they'd invented stun rounds. At that thought she realised, maybe they hadn't.

"We don't have 'stun rounds'," Will said, confirming her thought. "Is that what you guys use?"

Six nodded, "yeah, very effective."

The words seemed to piques the interest of those sat around them. James was the first to speak up, although his words were said carefully, "what's it like? Where you're from, I mean, the future."

Six didn't really want to talk about where she was from, so she sent him a grimace along with the words, "Full of war."

"But before the war, it must've been amazing?" He asked in hope, even as sadness lined his eyes.

"I wasn't born before the war," Six was about to continue to explain how even before the war they'd had terrorism, but she stopped herself. She wasn't sure what they knew, but maybe they thought she was from their future. If that was the case, then perhaps she could give a little boost to their moral by telling them how far Humanity had reached. Even if they knew she was from alternate universe, she could at least try and give them hope for something.

Six sighed, "But, Humanity has reached far and succeeded in many areas. Reach was one of our crowning achievements," _yes, and look what the Covenant did to it!_ Six's lips threatened to twitch into a sneer, but she managed to tame it into a minor smirk. "It was a…beautiful planet as well as being very dedicated to the Military side of things. Space itself is also a spectacle, well, from what I've seen while serving in the UNSC."

Six decided to stop there. Talking about her home in that way was strange for her. She wasn't sure why. Perhaps it was because she didn't believe in all the beauty of her home anymore; all she saw was death.

"How big are we talking?" Robert asked. "For your _space_ ships, I mean."

"It ranges from about one hundred meters to around four thousand meters," Six answered with a small grin. Although the UNSC didn't have the biggest ships out there, they were force to be reckoned with and had managed to give the Covenant a run for their money a couple of times.

A chorus of "How big?" and "You're kidding" came from the few at the table and a few heads turned in their direction. They must've been about to turn back when Robert called out to them.

"Hear that guys? Space ships longer than thirty-six football pitches, that's some crazy shit!" He gave Graham a sideways glance, "and that's real football, not soccer, for all you Brits in the room."

There was a small laugh that rippled through the mess hall, which soon died down and was replaced by exciting chattering about giant space ships. Six allowed herself a small smile before she finished chewing the remainder of her food, sipped the rest of her water and began to get up.

As she did she picked up her tray and spoke to those at the table, "I must return to my armor, thank-you for your company."

"Don't you think you should catch some sleep?" Will asked, a touch of concern in his voice, "your armor can wait until morning, right?"

"With all due respect, Sir, I'll be a more efficient soldier with my armor," Six said stiffly. She didn't need –or want- to add that she felt very vulnerable and exposed without it.

Will looked taken aback a little before he put a frown on his face, "you need rest. You can't be an efficient soldier on a couple of hours of sleep, besides Ratchet will have my aft if I don't make sure you take it easy."

"I assure you, Sir, I'll get enough rest."

His frown didn't lessen, despite the fact that she was being truthful, "I'll be round to show you to your quarters in an hour or two. You can catch some sleep then."

"Aye, Sir." And with that Six grabbed her crutches in one hand, lifted up her tray in the other and was about to leave when Graham stopped her.

"Noble Six…" he began uncertainly. "We'll get your tray."

"Yeah," Robert agreed with a smirk. "Don't want Ratchet hurling his tools at us."

Replacing her tray on the table, Six nodded in thanks and hopped out of the room and back to her armor. After all, she had a lot to do and time was not on her side.


	10. Decommission

 

* * *

~/~

**Will Lennox**

As Six left the mess hall a couple of curious glances followed the abnormally pale and tall Human, although she didn't seem to notice. Will sighed as he hunched over his plate that he was only halfway through. He stole a glance at Six's plate, which looked like it'd been licked clean. Although, it didn't surprise him given that she'd come from the middle of a war-zone. He doubted she had much time to eat a huge meal.

"Intense, isn't she?" Epps asked, a small ghost of a smile on his face.

Will nodded, "she's been through a lot."

The three at the table leaned forward in interest and Will knew right away what they wanted. He wasn't sure what to tell them; Hell, he barely believed any of it himself. A super soldier from another plane of existence? It was completely ridiculous! Yet, said super soldier had just clicked out the room on a pair of crutches.

Deciding to keep it simple, Will told them that Six's people were going through a large scale war. He told them that she had been born into it and that it was all she knew. His friends seemed to take the information as well as they could, only they wanted to know about where she was from. When Epps asked that, Will was at a complete loss at what to say. But, he decided to take a chance, after all they'd all been through a lot of strange events.

"Alright," Will said after a while of collecting his thoughts. "Try to believe what I'm about to say. Noble Six is from another world-"

"Thought she was from the future?" Graham asked, he and the others all sharing looks or confusion.

Will smiled, "I mean she's from the future in another plane of existence."

His words seemed to make them fall into silence immediately. Their faces were thoughtful, if not a bit confused, so Will decided to give them a moment before continuing.

"Come on, none of that X-files shit is real, Lennox," Epps laughed in disbelief.

"More like Stargate…" James murmured quietly.

They all stared at him.

"What?" he asked innocently.

Murmurs of "such a nerd" came from those around the table. James then half-heartedly defended himself, by muttering something about there being nothing wrong with watching sci-fi shows as they worked with aliens. His words elected a chuckle from those at the table, one which he joined in with before they all lapsed into silence.

"As I was saying," Will said after a few moments. "She's from another plane of existence, at least that's what she and the orb say."

"What about the other alien?" Graham asked the question Will had been expecting. He wasn't entirely sure how to completely answer the question without telling them everything. As much as he was conflicted to the alien when it came to his horrific past, Will couldn't alienate the Sangheili –was that it?- from everyone.

"He's from the same place," Will said finally. "They don't like each other because there's a…feud going on between their people."

He knew that the others wouldn't be satisfied with just that, but they knew Will. If he didn't tell them everything then there was a good reason. Even when nodding in acceptance they had unsatisfied looks on their faces; just as Will expected.

As if wanting to move away from the subject Epps spoke up, "So what's he all about?"

It was a vague question, but an easy one to answer. With a light smile, Will proceeded to tell them what little he knew about the alien. They all listened while occasionally throwing in a comment or two. At the end of it everyone had a sobering look in their eyes. This was their second alien contact in two years and it made them look at everything around them in a whole new light. Things were no longer as simple as they'd originally believed and Will doubted they ever would be again. Will finished his explanation by mentioning that the meeting tomorrow would be bigger than usual. The purpose of the meeting would be to explain the situation to the rest of the base personnel.

After that Will would begin the long process of figuring out where to assign the Spartan and what he would do with Roh. He wasn't sure if they could trust the alien to fight with them given its past, but Will wouldn't know until they discussed it.

~/~

**Roh 'Rithinee**

Roh stared at the plateful of food before him; His eyes darting between it and the utensils that had been provided for his use. There was some form of meat –the likes of which he'd never seen before- accompanied by some greenery and small white fluffy grains. He remembered the large construct discussing with him what types of food he could and couldn't eat. Thankfully there was little difference in diet when it came to Sangheili and Humans, so getting food suitable for him had not been a problem. Although, that didn't mean he still wasn't cautious about it. These Humans knew what he'd done, the many he'd killed in the name of a religion based on lies, and so he wouldn't put it past them to gain revenge. After all, they were cunning creatures.

"I assure you it isn't poisoned," snapped the medical construct, as if he'd been reading Roh's mind. "They may be angry with what was revealed about your origins, but Lennox and his team would never stoop that low; they're soldiers, not murders."

"I meant no offence construct. It is an unusual situation to wrap my mind around," Roh said calmly. "Humans have always been the enemy, it was simple, but now," Roh glanced down at his clenched fist. "Everything is not as simple as it was. All my beliefs have proven false; my entire reason for fighting was built on a lie." Roh paused, gathering his scattered thoughts, "it will take me time to grow accustomed to it all."

"Ensure that you keep in mind that you have no enemies here," the construct said, an underlying warning was in his tone.

"Your warning is heeded construct."

There was a grunt of acceptance before the construct turned back around. Accepting that the conversation had drawn to a close, Roh tentatively picked up one of the utensils. The three pronged piece of metal fit awkwardly in his grip, but Roh still managed to scoop up some of the white grains. It was from there that he spent the next few minutes getting used to the strange human eating utensils as he consumed his meal.

Overall, the food was pain tasting, but he assumed that was for his own safety as they knew little of what he could consume. The textures of the food was familiar; the meat reminded him of Colo, which his race farmed back home. Although it lacked the salty taste of Colo the meat still induced memories of when he used lived at his keep. The strange white grains were probably the least tasteful item on the plate, but was again similar to Irukan –a crop from back home.

Once he finished his meal, Roh allowed himself a brief mental silence before he began to think about his fate. He was certain that these Humans and their giant allies wouldn't simply get him go. Besides, where would he go? He had no means of transport except for the ship they'd arrived in and he doubted the Oracle would let him use it. His thought then drifted to the constructs, surely they had a ship that brought them here? He pondered over it for a moment before dismissing the idea based upon what they had said earlier. They wouldn't leave and even if they could, he was apparently now on a separate plane of existence. His home didn't exist here.

What was he to do?

Would he be a prisoner forever? Trapped on this planet with the species he'd tried to wipe out. Was this some kind of retribution for his actions? Were there Gods trying to tell him something?

The hissing of the door opening snapped Roh out of his thoughts and drew his attention to the newcomer. It was the Human referred to as Major Lennox. Perhaps he came baring answers for Roh.

The Major nodded in Roh's direction before addressing the construct, "How's he doing Ratchet?"

"Physically, he's fine, considering his injuries. I'm unsure of his mental health as I don't know what normal behavior is for his kind, although he's been very subdued and quiet." The construct eyed him thoughtfully before continuing, "What of my other patient? She should be here!"

The last part came out a growl and the Human winced. "She's eaten if that's any consolation, but there's defiantly something wrong up here," he indicated to his head.

The construct nodded in agreement as if he knew this already. "Yes, it's understandable. I'll make my way to her quarters before she turns in. I assume you're here about our other guest?" The construct motioned towards Roh.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Haven't had the chance to really talk and considering his the new residential alien, I should."

"Don't exhaust him," grumbled the construct before he turned back to his bench.

Despite the construct being unable to see, the Major nodded. He started walking towards the platform, which Roh currently resided on and sighed as he came to a stop.

"Ratchet..."

"What now?!"

"I need a lift up, I'm not yelling up at him," the Major explained.

"Naturally," the construct muttered before scooping up the human and depositing him in front of Roh. The Major landed on his feet and took a few steps towards Roh.

"Hi," he began. "I'm Major William Lennox, if you didn't already know."

Roh nodded, "I am aware of who you are Major, I am Roh 'Rithinee, Field Marshal of the Covenant and servant to the Proffets. At least, I was."

"This is to do with your war on us, I mean the..uh..other humans, isn't it?" The Major frowned. Roh wasn't completely sure why, but he had a feeling it was to do with referring to his race as if he were an outsider.

"Indeed. It is a war that I believe should never have begun."

"Why?" The Major's voice may have been curious, but his eyes were not. They were hard, steely even, and slightly narrowed.

"What you must understand Major, is that we merely follow what our leaders tell us, just as you humans do. I have been told that when we first encountered the humans they were defiling objects and sites that were sacred to us. I now know that to be the lies of the proffets as is likely most of what the proffets have told us. We've all been fooled."

"I see," the Major sighed, rubbing the side of his face.

Realising that the Major was feeling conflicted about the subject, Roh spoke up, "I do not expect you to believe me or sympathize with me. Just understand that at this precise moment in time I have no cause to be hostile. Although, I shall not be 'buddy, buddy' with you humans."

The Major nodded, understanding where Roh stood. His face relaxed a little as his frown disappeared and he asked another question. "What were these objects that you were fighting over?"

Roh had been expecting the question and had an inkling of what it was leading to. "The artifacts which we seek are of Forerunner origin. You have met one of their creations, the Oracle."

"Guardian?" Roh nodded, but sensed that the Major had more to say, so he waited. "Don't you think he's a bit strange? As if something's off...?"

The Major voiced his words carefully as he made a conscious effort to not insult Roh. Appreciating the effort, Roh mulled over the humans words for a moment. He agreed with the Major that there was something strange about the Oracle, but for all he knew this could be normal behaviour for an Oracle. Perhaps the centuries of loneliness had taken its toll on the Oracle?

"I see what you mean, but I do not know the normal behaviour of an Oracle," Roh responded.

The Major shrugged, though Roh was not sure why; Human gestures had always eluded him.

"At least I know I'm not going crazy," he chuckled before indicating for Roh to continue.

"There are many other artifacts that the Forerunners left behind and they all come in different forms. Some may be knowledge while others could be weapons or perhaps an Oracle. In my lifetime I have only had the pleasure of finding three, including the Oracle," Roh finished proudly. They were now one of the few things that he felt proud of doing during his time in the Covenant. They were also one of the few things that didn't do strange things to his stomach or incite his temper.

"I'm not going to like the part about where you found him, am I?" The Major winced as he prepared himself for Roh's answer.

"You have already seen the planet."

The Major's now hard brown eyes glared back at Roh, but he said nothing. For some reason the Major's stare brought shame to Roh. He wasn't completely sure why, only that he didn't enjoy the feeling.

"Is there anything else you wish to know about my past Major?" As soon as the words left Roh's mouth they felt like a jibe. He slammed his jaws shut and cursed himself. It was a habit Roh had grown accustomed to when dealing with humans and he was surprised he hadn't already slipped up.

"I think I've heard enough," the Major said stiffly as he walked to the edge of the platform and called to the Construct, who had no doubt been listening.

As the construct scooped up the Major, Roh felt the need to try and salvage the situation.

"My apologies, Major. It..." Roh shook his head. "I have no excuse to jibe at what you consider sacred."

Again the Major said nothing as he nodded and the construct left the room with him. Growling at himself, Roh tilted his head as he clenched he bottom jaws violently in frustration. Needing to do...something with his anger he kicked over the tray that had held his food. The tray went flying down the platform and landed with a loud clatter as the utensils on it flew everywhere.

It was at that moment that the construct returned, it's face severely unhappy as it glanced at the tray and then Roh. It appeared to vent hot air in an attempt to calm itself before it growled at Roh, "you're a real spawn of the pit, you know that?"

Without waiting for a reply the construct returned to its workbench and resumed its work.

"I am aware construct," Roh murmured more to himself than to the construct, despite not knowing what some of the constructs words were referring to. He backed up to the wall and slid down it into a sitting position. Hanging his head he cursed himself and the construct medic for saving him. Where was his honour now?!

**~/~**

**Noble Six**

"Perhaps you should take a break, Reclaimer?" Guardian suggested as he stopped what he was doing and faced Six.

Six shook her head, "not yet."

She wanted to get as much of her armour repaired as possible. She'd stay up all night if need be, after all she could function just fine with little sleep. Besides the sooner they finished her armour the sooner they could start on the long and tedious task of building a slip-space engine. She wouldn't have thought it possible without Guardian around. To be honest, she still didn't think it was possible because the technology simply didn't exist. Unless Guardian was planning on asking the _aliens_ for aid.

Frowning, Six voiced her concerns, "you don't plan on asking _them_ for help on the slip-space engine, do you?"

"Why of course," Guardian said as if it were obvious. "They must have some experience travelling the universe and I'm sure they'd be more than willing to aid us in the construction of a Slip-space engine. Why? Is there something wrong Reclaimer?"

Six was about to argue, but she stopped herself. What Guardian said made sense and she couldn't argue with it. Instead, Six merely assured the orb that there was nothing wrong. The pair were about to continue working when a familiar voice called out to her.

"Six!" It was Major Lennox.

Wondering what he wanted Six turned in his direction and asked, "yes, Sir?"

He seemed a little taken aback by the formality of her voice, but quickly schooled his features into that of disapproval.

"I thought we told you to get enough rest," he said before adding, "it's almost eleven and we've got an early start. Ratchet would kill me if he knew you weren't resting. Well he won't kill me, he'll probably throw a wrench at me or something."

Lennox smirked a little as he cast a glance at the red truck, which had been in the hanger the majority of the evening.

"I don't see why," Six sighed. The alien medic was causing a lot of problems for her. "I assure you Sir, I'll be done soon. I know my limits."

Lennox gave her a dubious look and look like he was about to say something when the truck spoke up.

"If you would like Lennox, I can keep an eye on Noble Six," the alien leader offered as he rolled forward.

"You sure?"

"Indeed."

"Well, better your aft than mine," Lennox chuckled, eliciting a small rumble from the alien.

Six ground her teeth, "with all due respect Sir, I don't need a babysitter."

"He's not here to babysit you Six, he's looking out for you," Lennox reasoned. "I know you don't like aliens, but give Optimus and his team a chance; they're good guys."

Six was slightly taken aback by Lennox's words. How could he have so much faith in them? They weren't human so how could he trust them?

"I-" Six stopped herself. "Understood, Sir."

Lennox smiled in satisfaction, "Good. Ratchet said he'd be up when it's time for lights out, so keep an eye out."

"Aye, Sir. Is there anything else?"

"Just...look after yourself," He reinforced softly. And with that he bid them all goodbye before leaving the hanger. It was also at that moment that Six could see why so many respected him; he was a good man. Whether or not he was proficient on the battlefield remained to be seen.

Turning back to her armour Six continued to take apart the only thing that had been constant in her life; not that it bothered her much. Since beginning her armour's reconstruction they had progressed very little and Guardian had mentioned that they would be unable to continue soon. When questioned the AI had explained that he needed to 'check the systems' before they could continue the merge. While Six wasn't completely sure what the AI meant, she had a feeling it was to do with whatever had happened when it had become as damaged as it was. In a way she was curious as to what had become of the body. She was about to ask when the sound of metallic footsteps reached her ears.

Turning Six looked up at the green robot, "Hey, Doc."

"Stay there," he grumbled without bothering to greet her. "I just need to run a few scans, then you need to get some rest."

"If it'll keep you off my back, go ahead," Six snarled before a green light washed over her. There was a slight tingle as it hit her, but it was hardly noteworthy.

"Hmm," his metal face pulled into a frown. "The cybermatter has taken to you well, better than I expected. Aside from your injuries the only problem is exhaustion. Excluding you unconsciousness today, when was the last time you slept?"

It took a moment for Six to think back before she answered, "two days ago."

"How many hours?"

"At least 6." It had probably been less considering she'd constantly been waking up. The other four had been like it too; the gravity of Reach's situation being the reason for their temporary insomnia.

"Then I believe your body is beyond overdue. Go now, there will be plenty of time to repair you armour. Your health is more important," Ratchet spoke in a tone that suggested she shouldn't argue.

Despite the desire to disagree with him, Six saw the logic in his suggestion. With her jaw tensing a little she ground out, "I see your point. Where are my quarters?"

Ratchet glanced at Optimus, who quickly transformed before explaining, "Major Lennox has given you permanent accommodation in one of the currently unused human dormitory rooms. He has also give me the location if you'd like me to show you?"

"Sure. What about him?" Six nodded towards Guardian who was occasionally firing a small blue beam at her armor.

"He is to remain on our side of the base for the time being. It would not do to disturb the other humans."

"Lead on then."

"One moment," Optimus said. Not a moment later did he transform and a human step out of his cab clad in simple civilian garb. It consisted of a pair of dark blue trousers and a white and red jacket over a white top. Hanging from the man's neck was a small dog tag, which -Six could just make out- had a strange face engraved on it. A mop of short dark hair sat upon the man's head, framing a sun kissed face and bright blue eyes. His head was fixed to a well-built frame with broad shoulders and long powerful legs to match.

As she finished her spilt second analysis the man began to walk towards her. She already knew who it was, even before he reintroduced himself.

"Greetings, Six. As you have no doubt guessed, I am Optimus Prime and this is my holoform."

"Why would you need something like this?" Six asked as she went through a few tactical reasons she could think of. Despite coming up with possibilities, she was curious what spiel Optimus would give her. It would no doubt be about gaining a greater understanding of her race; not that she'd believe it.

"We use them to better understand and communicate with the humans, when our normal forms are inconvenient." His explanation was almost exactly as she predicted.

Six said nothing, merely indicating for Optimus to lead on. Before they moved away from the table Six quickly grabbed her helmet and put it under her arm; she wasn't about to leave Dot unprotected. Optimus held out a hand while he offered to hold it for her, but she spat out a quick decline. The holoform gave her the briefest of glances before it started to lead her out the hanger. Their walk was silent for the most part, except for the occasional click of her crutches. Although, the silence allowed her to mull over the alien who was escorting her.

Optimus seemed to be hell bent on trying to understand her hate for anything alien, as well as trying to get see them in a different light. While she wouldn't ever admit it, she was impressed with his tact and lack of frustration. Even though she hadn't even been around a day, Six could tell that her view of aliens frustrated those she'd come into contact with. She couldn't expect them to understand. They hadn't watched worlds burn. They hadn't witnessed the slaughter of billions of innocent civilians. And, they hadn't felt the hopelessness it brought. She'd become so used to it all now that it only made her more angry. Even when Reach had been attacked, everyone had shown some sort of defeat; well almost everyone. Jorge had never had the chance. He died believing he'd just saved the planet.

"We're here," Optimus' deep voice brought her out of her musings. His eyes were filled with concern, his hand frozen in mid-air as he reached for the door.

"Is something bothering you, Noble Six?" He asked softly.

Six blinked, gaining control of a sneer that threatened to rise and answered him in a neutral tone. "I'm fine."

He eyes told her that he didn't agree with her answer, but he decided not to push the subject. Instead, he pushed open the metal door and they both entered the room.

The room was as she expected it to be; small and bare. Despite it's size, it could still manage to house two people as there were two beds, two wardrobes and two desks complete with two chairs. Although it seemed that at the moment it would only have to contend with one very tall Human. Two lights were stuck to the ceiling as they illuminated the room and at the back of the room -between the two beds- was a large blind covered window. On the left-hand side of the plain room was an open doorway to what she guessed was the bathroom.

"Am I correct in assuming that you no longer require my aid?" Optimus asked as she finished observing the room.

"No," Six's lip twitched as she finished her sentence, "thank you."

Optimus nodded and gave her a warm smile before he quietly left the room. When the door clicked shut behind him Six turned to one of the beds. Upon it was a set of navy clothes along with a navy towel. Sighing, Six carefully placed herself on the edge of the bed as she was unsure if it would hold her weight. The bed creaked quite a bit as she settled onto it, but it soon returned to being silent as she set her crutches to the side and put her helmet on the bed.

 _This feels so strange_ , she thought as she rubbed the side of her head. She could feel a mild headache coming on now that she wasn't distracting herself. Seeing as it did her no use to just sit there, Six scooped up the towel and clothes and made her way to what she'd assumed was the bathroom, dragging a crutch with her as she did.

~/~

It was awkward trying to shower with one of her legs in a cast and it infuriated her. Her leg was barely damaged, but if it meant getting that damned alien off her back then she'd wear the cast. It wasn't as if she'd be wearing it for long.

With the shower on hot, the warm water that cascaded down her body soothed and loosened her muscles. It made her relax as much as she could, given where she was. She watched as red water washed off of her and onto the floor, cocking her head in mild interest as she did. The copious amount of the red told her that she'd lost a lot of blood today, which wasn't a surprise. She'd spent the better part of a day fighting Covenant forces with the last two members of her team. Although, there was an equal amount -if not more- of purple blood and that was something that made her very happy. There was only one hinge-head that she needed to kill and perhaps she would get the opportunity.

A smile made its way onto her face as she ruffled through her short hair with one hand; the other being used to lean against the wall. A few specks of dirt appeared in the water with the motion. They too were soon washed away, just like any remnants of her last battle on Reach.

Thoughts of the glassed planet made her turn and thump the wall; imagining it was a hinge-head. Withdrawing her hand before she felt tempted to strike again, Six leant her forehead against the cool metal. She couldn't believe they'd failed.

She'd failed to protect humanity.

She'd failed to be the soldier they needed her to be.

She knew that planets fell as soon as the Covenant found them and it had only ever angered her. But, for some reason the fall of Reach really affected her. Perhaps it was because there had been such faith that it would never fall, such hope. And now, all that was left was Earth. Would she return too late?

A growl escaped her lips; disagreeing with her thoughts.

She wouldn't return too late. She would get there before the end; perhaps even end the war. She wasn't out for the glory, she'd be satisfied with protecting humanity. In the end, it was what she was made for. It was her duty to protect Humanity, no matter the cost. She may be stuck on this strange version of Earth that played host to aliens, but she'd do her damn best to make sure they didn't get in the way.

She wouldn't even let the human part of 'NEST' get in her way either. She was may be temporarily working for them, but her loyalties would always be to the UNSC. If they ever asked for her tech, she'd have to say no. What would happen if the UNSC ever encountered them if she gave them information? It was a difficult subject as she had seen what threat these aliens posed. She didn't want to leave humanity undefended, no matter where they were.

Six grit her teeth in frustration as she slammed the shower off. The water stopped just as quick and she shuffled through the steam towards her towel. While precariously balancing on one foot Six quickly dried the other before moving to the rest of her body. When she'd finished, Six got changed, hung up her towel and left the steamy bathroom. The cooler and dryer air of her room hit her as she hopped back to her bed. Despite being cooler than the bathroom Six was tempted to see if the window would open, even if it was only a little.

Reaching out with one hand Six pulled up the blind to reveal the night sky. Distant suns flickered every so often and she felt a strange sense of longing to be out there again. She wasn't exactly sure what suns were linked to which systems as she'd never seen the stars from the surface of Earth. However, she had a small inkling as to which sun was for Reach. Sighing, Six found that the window could open a little, which she did.

Leaving the blind up the Spartan turned back to her bed and slowly lowered herself onto it. She set her crutch to the side, along with her other one, and scooped up her helmet.

"Dot?" She whispered to the AI.

"Yes, Noble Six?" The toneless reply was the same as ever.

"You okay?"

"All systems are functional despite foreign hacking attempts."

Six didn't like the sound of that. She had a feeling the AI was referring to what Optimus had mentioned a couple of hours ago.

" _We took this question to the intelligence in your armour, but it refused to give anyone an answer. Perhaps you could shed some light on the situation?"_

"What did they want?"

"There were numerous search parameters, most included connections to you, the Covenant and 'Forerunners'." Dot paused, "I am unfamiliar with this term."

"Apparently it's a long dead race, they created Guardian's Approach," Six explained as she stared into the cracked visor of her helmet.

"Shall I log this information?"

"Sure."

"Is there anything more you wish to add?"

Six thought for a moment as she unconsciously rubbed at some of the dirt on her helmet. "They built something called the Halo Array, which was used to combat an alien parasite -The Food. The Array killed every living being in the universe, or further from what Guardian said."

Dot said nothing and Six felt like she should continue, feeling more at ease talking to the AI than anyone else she'd been in contact with recently.

"Everything was reseeded afterwards, but it seems Humanity was important to the Forerunners. That's why Guardian calls me 'Reclaimer'."

"Is that all, Noble Six?"

"It's all I know about them so far, I'll add more when I can. The UNSC will want to know this when we get back."

"What is the current situation?"

"We're on Earth -a different Earth- and we're at a base, which belongs to a group called 'NEST'. They fight mechanical aliens, these 'Decepticons', with another group call the 'Autobots'. For now we're going to work with them while we build a slip-space engine so we can return."

"You are aware that we are UNSC property." The AI almost sounded like it was berating her; calling her a traitor.

"I know Dot," Six agreed. "I don't like it either."

"Protocol dictates that I should not fall into enemy hands. I must be decommissioned."

Six stopped rubbing at the dirt on her helmet. Her body frozen in place.

"Noble Six," Dot sounded harsher, a 'no nonsense' type of harsher. "Decommission me. It is your duty as a member of the UNSC. These beings have already tried to access me once, they will attempt it again."

"I can't do that Dot. You need to record all the information we gather while here, don't you think the UNSC will want to see something from my absence?" Six rebutted her voice growing darker as she added, "I'll make sure they don't get their hands on you again, I swear."

"It is likely that you will receive punishment when we return to UNSC space," Dot said, reminding Six of the implications of her decision to not terminate the AI.

Six swung her legs onto the bed and lent over to the bedside table. Propping the helmet in front of the alarm clock that read 'twenty-three-dot-thirty'.

"I know," Six agreed. "Wake me if anyone enters."

"Affirmative."

Shuffling under the sheet, it was only when her head hit the pillow that she realised how tired she really was. Her eyes snapped shut after she took one last look at the night sky and her helmet. Darkness soon encompassed her mind and she fell into a sleep that was long overdue.


End file.
